On 05.03.15 11:25, Toby Corkindale wrote:
Clicking "Something else" takes me into the GUI partitioner. Using this, I was able to "Create a new partition label" for the second disk.
If I could somehow reach that point, I'd be home free. At no point was that option offered, so we'll have to work around it.
After that I made sure I had selected the second disk, then hit the "+" button to create a new partition.
I saw +/- buttons on the LHS, but they were greyed out. ...
Not sure what was going on differently for Erik, but I couldn't trivially reproduce the problem.
However I wouldn't be surprised if the partitioner was getting confused by an existing exotic partition layout. I don't get the feeling it's very robust.
Even parted says: (parted) p Error: /dev/sdc: unrecognised disk label for the new drive. I.e. I very much needed a "Create a new partition label" option - if it had been presented at any stage, I'd have leapt at it. Once I decide whether to go for a bsd or sun partition table (or even flop back to msdos, if there's trouble), I suspect that the installer might be able to take it from there. But since parted will sanitised partition boundaries if I specify partition sizes in % or GB, I can't see a lot of risk in just whacking in a boot partition, a swap, and one for the rest, using parted, so the installer has little or nothing to trip it up.
Suggestions:
1) Unplug other disks, or at least move them to low-priority slots, so that you're installing to your new disk with it as the highest priority item in the boot order. You were intending on replacing them shortly anyway, right?
Yup. They're a decade old, and one is occasionally wobbly at boot.
2) If you really must leave things as they are, then try blanking the partition table (and MBR) on the new disk before use.
From a command line prompt (in existing linux, or trial mode of the ubuntu ISO), run dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/XXX bs=1M count=1 where XXX is replaced by the id for the disk - probably sdb or sdc, but for the love of god, check that first.
You did make me chuckle there. Decades ago I did "rm -rf /XXX/YYY", but fat-fingered a space after the first '/'. I suspect it takes precisely one such experience to make a hardened unix user.
You can id the disks by running "fdisk -l /dev/XXX" first. (It's safe, it'll just print out some details and existing partitions for the disk)
That confirms what we know: $ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdc Disk /dev/sdc: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/sdc doesn't contain a valid partition table (I'd used fdisk -s to quickly find the device for the new drive, to use with parted, but hadn't tried the -l.)
3) Try a later version of Ubuntu, eg. 14.10, as the installer has probably improved a little. I don't think there's any point trying alternatives such as Kubuntu or Mint, as they just use the same base with different packages loaded later.
Sorry, kan't kstand Kubuntu. Will probably go with Debian, as I have it on the laptop. (Also might then not have to hoik out NetworkManager before being able to get the network up. :) Many thanks for trying to replicate, and the useful hints. I think this one is twice conquered now, since either parted or Debian will do the trick once I have enough consecutive moments to whip up a partition table, and run through the install. I could disconnect the old drives, for amusement, but I'm not going to work on a patch to fix the installer in any event, so I'd rather spend a little time trying out parted on an empty disk, in case I ever need to use it on a populated one. Erik -- Leibowitz's Rule: When hammering a nail, you will never hit your finger if you hold the hammer with both hands.