installer doesn't let me partition any harddrive

[Roy Sindre Norangshol]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

installer doesn't list any harddrive to partition,
but using a terminal and using gparted , parted or cfdisk shows /dev/sda 40GB disk which I can partition. Why won't the installer list this drive and use it? Ive tried both using IDE legacy and IDE native mode in bios configuration.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Wed Nov 4 20:58:30 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386 (20091028.5)
Package: ubiquity 2.0.8
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
SourcePackage: ubiquity
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic i686
XsessionErrors:
 (gnome-settings-daemon:3035): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (gnome-settings-daemon:3035): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (nautilus:3090): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed
 (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:3119): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
 (gnome-panel:3082): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_x11_colormap_foreign_new: assertion `GDK_IS_VISUAL (visual)' failed

[Keith Watson (kpwatson)]

I inadvertently duplicated this bug under https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/477073.

I've marked it so.

Interestingly I'm running on an amd64 system.

One thing I did spot from the syslog (attached to 477073) was that ubiquity had picked up that I had a RAID controller and had switched on dmraid. This system is so old that I'd forgotten about the raid controller (I had switched that off ages ago and use the 2 SATA disks as separate drives not a raid set).

So I restarted the install using the nodmraid option (in fact I switched just about everything off!!) but the problem persisted.

I've attached the 2nd syslog as it seems to show that ubiquity is re-instating the raid functions.

[Keith Watson (kpwatson)]

After searching around a bit I found that several (but not all) people had success as follows;

1. use BIOS to set controller mode to IDE
2. boot from live CD
3. use synaptic to completelty uninstall all dmraid related packages
4. run ubiquity

This worked for me.

[Roy Sindre Norangshol (norangshol)]

I can confirm that booting up the live CD, and using synaptic to remove the dmraid package makes ubiquity detect the harddrives and is able to partition it.

[Timo Wiren (timo-wiren)]

I'm experiencing this bug on Xubuntu 10.04 32-bit Desktop CD. Purging dmraid fixes the problem.

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 SATA.
SATA Controller: Promise (Integrated on Asus A7V8X mobo)
Chipset: VIA KT400

I have most likely been hit by this bug also on other systems, for example on Kubuntu 10.04 64-bit on Intel G45 mobo (using ICH10 chipset and HDD in AHCI mode).

[allxk (allxk)]

Installing Ubuntu 10.10 64-bit Is this a bug!
Please see attached image:
The disk partitioned with gparted.
Ubuntu 10.10 x64 Installation window will not show any partitions, and edit partition option.
Same thing with Ubuntu 10.10 x32.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Reviewing your log files attached to this bug report it seems that there is a problem with your installation media (CD/DVD). Please retry your installation with new media and if it still fails I'd recommend testing your CD drive with other media. In the event that is is not in fact an error with your installation media please set the bug's status back to New. Thanks and good luck!

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Cassidy James Blaede (cassidyjames)]

This is still an issue with Ubuntu 12.04. Same exact issue; would not recognize any hard drives, then removed the dmraid package and the installer recognized it right away. Interestingly GParted was able to recognize the HDD the whole time.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Marcus Tomlinson (marcustomlinson)]

This release of Ubuntu is no longer receiving maintenance updates. If this is still an issue on a maintained version of Ubuntu please let us know.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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