Ubuntu – Ubuntu installer does not show drives

system-installation

I am trying to install Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on my Inspiron laptio, but the installer does not show any drives. My system has a 1TB SATA drive and a 32GB SSD. As far as I can figure, the boot files are kept on the SSD for fast startup (for Windows). During Win7 installation, I had to manually load drivers for RAID controller to see all available drives.
Running fdisk -l from the live CD shows the following: 

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x234b4782

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1              63       80324       40131   de  Dell Utility
/dev/sda2   *       81920    41627647    20772864    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3        41627648   357019647   157696000    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4       357019648  1953517567   798248960    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5       672415744  1312966655   320275456    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda6      1312968704  1953517567   320274432    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Disk /dev/sdb: 32.0 GB, 32017047552 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3892 cylinders, total 62533296 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x234b474b

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1            2048    16775167     8386560   84  OS/2 hidden C: drive
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

In the Ubuntu installer, I can only choose /dev/sdb for "Device for boot loader installation", and sdb doesn't show any drives.
I cannot select /dev/sda.

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks.

Best Answer

I had the exact same problem with my Dell Inspiron 14z. I removed the RAID info on sda explained in this answer. It worked for me, without destroying the current Windows 7 installation. The SSD seems to be used for hibernate/sleep in Win7, and that still works after removing the RAID info.

It might be possible to install ubuntu on the SSD (sdb), but I could not find the disk in the partition step during installation, so I installed on sda.

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