Gparted can't create partition table

Question

Here's what the problem is.

About a day or so ago I used Gparted live cd to create 3 NTFS primary partitions on my external 500 gig Goflex and one extended with 2 logical partitiones.

I had planned to install windows 8 on the first partition, then ubuntu and kubuntu on the other 2.

After I finished partitioning my drive with gparted, I booted into windows vista to make my bootable windows 8 usb to install it with, I also decided to check to make sure all my partitions were working properly.

Then I found they were, and they weren't.

My 50 gig first partition I had planned to install windows on showed up normal and the 300 gigs of space left in the extended partition did as well, the rest showed up as raw.

So I figured alright, something went awal while making the partitions, so I booted up gparted once again.

Then to my surprise gparted showed the entire drive as unallocated, and when I refreshed the list, it showed as all the partitions I had made earlier, buy with a exclamation mark by them all.

So I figured ok, might be a problem with the partition table as I'd seen a similar problem in past on a drive that was not partitioned at all, so I decided to create a new partition table and take the time out again to sit and wait.

Then I got a message saying gparted could not create the partition table, followed by it showing the entire drive as formatted into ntfs.

After that I figured ok I'll take a break, come back in a hour, maybe it's something I did.

So a hour later I came back after having booted up windows, plugged the drive in to see if by some miracle windows could access the drive.

In disk management when I plugged the drive in, it would freeze attempting to read the drive, as I'd seen in the past with raw disks, yet when I unplugged it I got a glimpse of disk management showing it as a perfectly fine ntfs file system on the drive followed by a "you must format disk K in order to use it".

So I then was assured the disk was raw as that is what had happened in the past, followed by a new partition table through gparted to fix the problem and a 10 hour format in windows.

So I once again booted up gparted, to get the message "error fsyncing/closing/dev/sdg:input/output error" followed by "error opening dev/sdg No such file in directory" after I refreshed and somehow saw the disk show up as perfectly fine ntfs and then tried to create a new partition table to try to wipe out all my problems and start over again.

And not gparted only shows the drive there about 1/10 refreshes the rest I get the directory error.

If anybody can assist me in any way shape or form I will be thankful.

Solution 1

Why do you create so many NTFS partitions in the first place? As for your info, Ubuntu/Kubuntu can't be installed on one of those, they require a Linux file system like ext4.

I'd suggest the following:

1. Delete all partition.

2. Use Vista to create a primary NTFS partition for Windows8, and then proceed installing it.

3. Install Ubuntu and Kubuntu. You can create partitions for them inside the installer.

Solution 2

My suggestion is to try:

Plug your external hdd.

Open a terminal,

Press Ctrl+Alt+T

Run it:

sudo -i
fdisk -l

Suppose your disk is /dev/sdg, continue running:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdg bs=1M
gparted

By gparted create a GPT partition table.

If your PC is (U)EFI aware via the BIOS, create a first partition EFI bootloader (ef00 EFI System) 500 Mg

If your PC is not (U)EFI aware via the BIOS, create a first partition BIOS boot partition, (ef02 BIOS boot) 500 Mg

A continuation of this partition, leave 80 Gb free, to install Windows 8.

Then create partitions for swap (8200 linux swap) and shared /home (8300 Linux filesystem) ext4, (using same username and password) to Ubuntu and Kubuntu.

And then finally create partitions for each /,(8300 Linux filesystem) ext4, to Ubuntu and Kubuntu.

The installation of these systems requires that you install first Windows 8 on free space before the other systems.

Comments

[thonixx]

I am not sure but I think Windows can't recognize extended volumes properly. U should install Windows on primary partitions.

[Eliah Kagan]

Although you intend to eventually install Ubuntu, it seems to me this question isn't really about Ubuntu in any way. You're using a GNU/Linux distro--the GParted Live CD (which is not Ubuntu). And you're getting stuck on creating partitions that you can then see, especially in Windows. This question is probably off-topic for Ask Ubuntu. If you still need help, this would probably be more appropriate for Super User.

[Admin]

Maybe a HDD error? Try run a smart scan on the disk.

[Star OS]

Ubuntu should never be installed on NTFS. Change the kubuntu and ubuntu partition's filesystem to ext4!

[Kryštof Píštěk]

What you're seeing isn't normal. Maybe check the livecd? (md5/sha256 or other checksums, linux livecds normally have an integrated function to do that)

[mikewhatever]

Any particular reason to insist using Gparted? It doesn't seem to work very well for you.

[William]

It was working fine till now, any it's the only partitioning software that has worked well for me before. If you know of a better partitioning software, I'll try it out.

[Nicolas de Fontenay]

Try using fdisk. It's command line but it's not that bad. It has a very detailed menu.