Ubuquity partitioning fails to find /dev/sda

[C de-Avillez]

DVD image from 20121005. Booted brand-new system with it, selected "try Ubuntu", verified Ubuntu worked on the system. Tried to install, partitioning tries to install on /dev/sdc (memory stick, boot device), and suggests /dev/sdb (DVD) for Grub.

Cancelled, opened Nautilus. Nautilus shows a disk "OS". Mounted it, got the original Windows installed system, using all disk.

Unmounted, opened gparted -- /dev/sda is show. Resized /dev/sda3 so that Windows will only use 100G.

Rebooted, tried to install Ubuntu -- again Ubiquity does not show /dev/sda.

Opened this bug.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: ubiquity 2.11.5
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.4.0-5.11-generic 3.4.0
Uname: Linux 3.4.0-5-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.1.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.317
Date: Fri Oct 5 23:57:18 2012
InstallCmdLine: file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash --
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Alpha amd64 (20120612)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ubiquity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

OK. I had to get this working, it is my wife's new laptop. Precise failed the same (12.04.1); alternate Quantal image also failed.

Eventually I found that -- somehow -- the partitioning provided by Dell was causing this. After I formatted the HD (remember, only the installers were unable to find the drive), deleting all partitions, I was able to install Quantal.

The original partitions (unfortunately, the logs were lost) were like this:

sda1 -- Dell Tests
sda2 -- Dell Recovery
sda3 -- Windows.

Now, a new test or more data will need to wait for somebody else to get a system like this one from Dell. I think we do not need milestoning it against release anymore, but this should still be kept in the back burner until we find what is it Dell did to the partition table.

[Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)]

The installer detected RAID card on your machine. Maybe it's one of the new Intel Matrix Storage (Rapid Storage, Advanced Management).

Oct 5 23:55:37 ubuntu activate-dmraid: Serial ATA RAID disk(s) detected. If this was bad, boot with 'nodmraid'.
Oct 5 23:55:37 ubuntu activate-dmraid: Enabling dmraid support.

You can try booting the cd, pressing F6 and selecting nodmraid option.

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

Yes, I noticed that. I would say there was, indeed, a raid install: this machine comes with a small (39G SSD); one of the original partitions on the SATA was around 39G, and IIRC, it had what looked like a Windows install (see below for a dmesg fragment from now).

So, I am guessing Dell raided the SSD and this small partition; it happened that something in the installer did not like it.

It *is* an interesting idea, though, to explore this small SSD.

For rebooting with the install media... Not a chance, anymore. The original Dell install was scratched.

[ 0.948367] ata5: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
[ 0.948390] ata2: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
[ 0.948409] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
[ 0.949310] ata2.00: ACPI cmd ef/10:06:00:00:00:00 (SET FEATURES) succeeded
[ 0.949314] ata2.00: ACPI cmd f5/00:00:00:00:00:00 (SECURITY FREEZE LOCK) filtered out
[ 0.949316] ata2.00: ACPI cmd b1/c1:00:00:00:00:00 (DEVICE CONFIGURATION OVERLAY) filtered out
[ 0.949556] ata1.00: ACPI cmd ef/10:06:00:00:00:00 (SET FEATURES) succeeded
[ 0.949562] ata1.00: ACPI cmd f5/00:00:00:00:00:00 (SECURITY FREEZE LOCK) filtered out
[ 0.949564] ata1.00: ACPI cmd b1/c1:00:00:00:00:00 (DEVICE CONFIGURATION OVERLAY) filtered out
[ 0.949731] ata2.00: ATA-8: SAMSUNG SSD PM830 mSATA 32GB, CXM12D1Q, max UDMA/133
[ 0.949739] ata2.00: 62533296 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32), AA
[ 0.950408] ata2.00: ACPI cmd ef/10:06:00:00:00:00 (SET FEATURES) succeeded
[ 0.950412] ata2.00: ACPI cmd f5/00:00:00:00:00:00 (SECURITY FREEZE LOCK) filtered out
[ 0.950414] ata2.00: ACPI cmd b1/c1:00:00:00:00:00 (DEVICE CONFIGURATION OVERLAY) filtered out
[ 0.950639] ata1.00: ATA-8: Hitachi HTS545050A7E380, GG2OA7A0, max UDMA/133
[ 0.950654] ata1.00: 976773168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32), AA
[ 0.950827] ata2.00: configured for UDMA/133
[ 0.951625] ata5.00: ATAPI: HL-DT-ST DVD+/-RW GU60N, A103, max UDMA/133
[ 0.951796] ata1.00: ACPI cmd ef/10:06:00:00:00:00 (SET FEATURES) succeeded
[ 0.951805] ata1.00: ACPI cmd f5/00:00:00:00:00:00 (SECURITY FREEZE LOCK) filtered out
[ 0.951811] ata1.00: ACPI cmd b1/c1:00:00:00:00:00 (DEVICE CONFIGURATION OVERLAY) filtered out
[ 0.952743] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
[ 0.952932] ata5.00: configured for UDMA/133
[ 0.952938] scsi 0:0:0:0: >Direct-Access ATA Hitachi HTS54505 GG2O PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[ 0.953117] sd 0:0:0:0: >Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[ 0.953121] sd 0:0:0:0: >[sda] 976773168 512-byte logical blocks: (500 GB/465 GiB)
[ 0.953123] sd 0:0:0:0: >[sda] 4096-byte physical blocks
[ 0.953259] sd 0:0:0:0: >[sda] Write Protect is off
[ 0.953263] sd 0:0:0:0: >[sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 0.953340] sd 0:0:0:0: >[sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 0.956310] usb 1-1: >new high-speed USB device number 2 using ehci_hcd
[ 1.049923] sda: sda1 sda2 < sda5 sda6 sda7 >
[ 1.050929] sd 0:0:0:0: >[sda] Attached SCSI disk
[ 1.051078] scsi 1:0:0:0: >Direct-Access ATA SAMSUNG SSD PM83 CXM1 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[ 1.051194] sd 1:0:0:0: >...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for ubiquity (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]