Partitioner question for dual boot

[Odyssey]

I am trying to install Ubuntu 8.04 alongside an XP install. All of the directions say that whether you choose Install at the intitial menu, "Install" from the desktop, or use System/Partition Editor, that you will get a choice to either use the entire disk, or to resize the existing partition.

When I use gParted, it comes up in familiar form but shows the 80GB hdd as dev/sda 76.33 GB and as

unallocated Partition
unallocated Filesystem

By way of background, this hdd at one time had either a version 6 or maybe even a version 5 Ubuntu installed on it. So when I installed XP, I chose to use 40GB for Windows and planned on using the remaining for Ubuntu. To further complicate matters, I didn't have a working XP install CD and so borrowed one from a friend, but all he had was a very old Compaq install disk. The install seemed to go fine and I was able to validate successfully.

Back to Ubuntu. If I now choose "New" partition, it flashes a box entitled "set disklabel on /dev/sda with a warning that "Creating a new disklabel will erase all data on dev/sda.

Questions:
Why is it showing only one partition of 76GB?
What happened to my 40GB XP partition?
Why is it not showing something as NTFS since that is the format that I used for the XP install?
Why am I not getting a chance to create a new partition without the necessity of setting a disklabel with the the result of erasing everything?

[Gina]

I had the disklabel problem some time back but haven't had anything like that lately - I thought it had been fixed in one of the many new versions I've had since. Now it seems to have raised it's ugly head again :( :( I forget now what I did to overcome it - could have been TestDisk on the SystemRescueCD. That will fix partition table problems etc. I'll do some research and get back to you - I'm going out shortly.

[Odyssey]

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l
omitting empty partition (5)

Disk /dev/sda: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9964 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa7e4e9e9

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 8 1027 8193150 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda2 1028 3067 16386300 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda3 2048 3067 8193118+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda4 3068 9963 55392120 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda5 1028 2047 8193087 83 Linux
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

Interesting that it shows drives c, f, and b as FAT32. I'm thinking I know why. When I went to install XP, the only disk that I had was for XP Pro which I went ahead and installed thinking that my serial number was for Pro. Turned out it wasn't, necessitating the borrowing of a Home CD. When I then installed Home, apparently it left Pro installed and now when I boot the Windows partition, I get a choice of Home or Pro. Having said all that, I didn't know that Pro even uses FAT32. I thought it always uses NTFS?

Unsure how to get rid of Pro at this stage and maybe the best thing is just to go through a reformat of the hdd and start over with Home, then 8.04?

Waddyatink?

[Gina]

Yes, I think that would be best in the long run. You will know exactly what you have whereas playing around with a mixture of systems would be rather an unknown.

I had a hard drive I'd used for Win98se then repartitioned for Ubuntu a few times. I'd put it on one side when I upgraded to a 250GB drive but took that out again when I built a new machine to put it in. Eventually I decide I'd have another play with the very old desktop and install 8.04 on it. I couldn't get Ubuntu to format any partitions for the new installation. Then the PC refused to boot with it connected - not even the CDROM drive. Eventually I booted 8.04 from CD without the HD powered up, plugged the power connector back in and told Ubuntu to use the whole drive. All was well then and I have a working P3 650MHz desktop with 10GB HD running Ubuntu 8.04 :)

So, yes, I'd recommend installing XP, letting it reformat the drive followed by installing Ubuntu - either letting it resize the Windows partition and using the space recovered or set up partitions manually.

[Odyssey]

We are on the same page. Thanks for your good counsel.

[Gina]

:) I might add that I prefer to do partitioning manually as a rule but the Guided Partitioning works pretty well - you can choose how much to grab from the existing partition.

[boyzie]

I always use Partition magic with Ubuntu and Klikit.Very easy never had a problem.