CrunchBang Linux

PhilipDaniels

New Member

Registered: 2013-09-06

Posts: 7

[Solved] Can't install, Windows partitions are not being detected

Hello everyone, new (potential) user here, but I need some help to get it installed

Just got a new Dell E6530 laptop with a 256Gb Samsung SSD. 's nice

It came with Windows 8 and UEFI. I was able to disable UEFI and install #!, but that hosed the Windows partition table so I just installed Windows 8 again (scrapping all existing partitions), and the BIOS is in legacy boot mode now. I now have on /dev/sda:

A small 350Mb Windows System Reserved partition
A 201Gb partition holding Windows 8 Pro.
36Gb of free space that I want to put #! on.

But now I can't install #! !!! Well the installer runs OK, but when it gets to the partioning stage it doesn't detect the Windows partitions and wants to write #! onto the entire disk....which is not ideal, to say the least! I've tried "Guided - use largest free space" and "Manual" and have just aborted before writing any changes to the partition table. Windows 8 is still there and working. Does anybody have any idea of where to go from here (legacy boot mode)? Or does anyone have instructions on how to dual boot under UEFI?

Last edited by PhilipDaniels (2013-09-07 17:00:22)

fatmac

#! Die Hard

Registered: 2012-11-14

Posts: 1,948

Re: [Solved] Can't install, Windows partitions are not being detected

This may be of use,
http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=317379

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Linux since 1999
Currently:  AntiX, & Crunchbang.
A good general beginners book for Linux :- http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz
A good Debian read :- http://debian-handbook.info/get/now/

PhilipDaniels

New Member

Registered: 2013-09-06

Posts: 7

Re: [Solved] Can't install, Windows partitions are not being detected

I was able to solve my problem. I'll post here for reference the full sequence of steps for reference for other users.

1. Receive new laptop with Windows 8 and UEFI boot loader.

2. Unable to install #! because I couldn't even boot from CD or USB with the UEFI setup.

3. Go into BIOS, set boot mode to legacy and reinstall Windows 8 from iso. Use the Windows 8 installer to delete all existing partitions and do a new install, leaving about 30Gb of free space.

Everything is OK so far.

4. Try and install #! Now we have problems, because the disk partitioner does not see the Windows partitions at all, and attempts to install #! onto the entire disk.

5. So I booted the "live install" and tried to run gparted with "sudo gparted". It spewed out this wonderful message (at which point I Ctrl-C'd it):

/dev/sda contains GPT signatures, indicating that it has a GPT table. However, it does not have a valid fake msdos partition table, as it should. Perhaps it was corrupted - possibly by a program that doesn't understand GPT partition tables. Or perhaps you deleted the GPT table, and are now using an msdos partition table. Is this a GPT partition table?

6. Google the error message, which took me to this post on the Ubuntu forums: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php? … st10022223

7. Go to http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/download.html#obs and download the 32 or 64bit deb as appropriate. I used the Debian 7 64 bit one.

8. Install it with "sudo dpkg -i gdisk*deb"

9. Run "sudo sgdisk --zap /dev/sda"

10. Run gparted again. No message this time.

11. Try and install #! again. I chose "Guided - largest continuous free space". My Windows partitions were recognised, #! was installed OK and grub recognised Windows and automatically setup a menu item for it (although it did describe it as a "Windows Vista loader").

So it's all working. Whew!