Ubuntu – Windows partitions not showing up when installing Ubuntu 14.04

dual-bootpartitioningsystem-installationwindows 10

I have a 1TB of harddrive on which windows 10 is installed. I previously had Ubuntu installed on the system but deleted it as I wanted to install the 14.04. I deleted the partition from Windows 10.

When I am trying to install using the live CD, I can only see the disk as a single drive and not seeing all the partitions. I am not sure what is wrong. Is it something related to my partitioning?

See the attached partition table

I need to use the J drive to install ubuntu 14.04 and I drive for 16.04.

Update 2: When running the command from live cd 

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -lu

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 / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x233b0d33

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1              63       80324       40131   de  Dell Utility
Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda2   *    27967488  1706840062   839436287+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3      1706840064  1707761663      460800   27  Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sda4           81857  1953520064   976719104    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda5           81920    27953099    13935590   83  Linux
/dev/sda6      1707773952  1953520064   122873056+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Partition table entries are not in disk order
  • Gparted is showing the disk with unallocated sign.
    [Attached picture]
  • I merged one of the drives with the C drive. The left unused empty drive is NTFS with about 115 GB on which I wish to install Ubuntu 14.04.

Best Answer

Your partition table is sufficiently incorrect to make GParted and the Ubuntu installer ignore it.

The primary partition /dev/sda2 is defined to use sectors 27967488 to 1706840062 and the primary partition /dev/sda3 is defined to use sectors 1706840064 to 1707761663; both of them overlap parts of the extended partition /dev/sda4, which is defined to use sectors 81857 to 1953520064. Windows seems to be happy enough with your partition table, but GParted isn't, and apparently the Ubuntu installer is equally unhappy.

You need to somehow remake the partition table without primary partitions overlapping the extended partition. I cannot provide a safe way of doing it, that is, a way of doing it which is certain to have no effects on the Windows operating system.

Partition table manipulations may result in loss of data; make adequate backups before you apply any modifications to the partition table. You should also make a backup of the partition table itself (sudo dd if=/dev/sda bs=1M count=1 of=somewhere-safe).

Once you are satisfied that you have adequate backups you may try to use fdisk to correct the partition table, either automatically (press x for expert functionality, then f for fix, p to see what fdisk did, v for verify and finally w if you want the changes written to disk), or manually by deleting and recreating partitions in a correct order with the same start and end sectors (except the extended partition, of course). I don't know whether this may have consequences for the drive letter assignment in Windows. Consider all implications before proceeding.

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