I only have an ISO of 14.04.1 around, not .2, but the installer is probably similar enough. With two disks, both blank, the "simple" install mode (not "Something else") gives me an option to pick from either of the two disks. After installation on the first, a second attempt to install changes this -- the non-something-else option is now "Erase Ubuntu 14.04 and reinstall". Clicking "Something else" takes me into the GUI partitioner. Using this, I was able to "Create a new partition label" for the second disk. After that I made sure I had selected the second disk, then hit the "+" button to create a new partition. I selected ext4 and a mount point of / for the new partition. Hit apply, then continue, and ubuntu was happily installed onto the second disk. 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. 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? 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 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)
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. -Toby Erik Christiansen writes:
Downloaded ubuntu-14.04.2-desktop-i386.iso, and burnt a CD. [problems detecting/configuring the disk]