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MINT installer doesn't recognize partitions

Posted: Wed Jul 24, 2013 11:21 am
by mkos
Hi there, I have Windows8 Pro installed on my Laptop in (U?)EFI mode and want to add a MINT 15 KDE in dual boot.
However, when I boot from the DVD (iso downloaded on monday), the partitions listed for the two hard drives/SSD are not listed correctly. This means that I can't install MINT without risking to overwrite my Win8 OS. Here are some more Facts. Let me know if you Need more!

Hardware:
ASUS ZENBOOK™ UX32VD (500GB hard drive + 24GB SSD)
I installed Win8 from scratch on the hard drive. The SSD should ideally have a SWAP for Linux and the rest as an NTFS Partition.

Here's a screenshot of the Win8 Partitioning tool that Shows how the drives are partitioned as well as the MINT installer screenshot. As you can see, the 500GB HDD does not have ist Windows Partitions recognized and listed.
Win.png
MINT.png
How can I now install MINT on the 500GB HDD without corrupting the Win8 Partitions?

Re: MINT installer doesn't recognize partitions

Posted: Wed Jul 24, 2013 5:26 pm
by Mark Phelps
OF the four partitions on the 500GB drive, three appear to be NTFS and the other Exfat. IF there's noting in the Exfat partition, then try doing the following:
1) Delete it using the Win7 Disk Management utility
2) Create a logical Extended partition in its place
3) Boot from the Mint install media and use Something Else to create an Ext4 partition and Swap partition -- inside the Logical partition.

Re: MINT installer doesn't recognize partitions

Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 3:37 am
by mkos
Thanks Mark!
I created a logical ext3 partition and booted the MINT Live DVD again. When the installer came to the partitioning settings, again nothing changed. It looked exactly like the pic in my frst post.
Now, I installed gparted during the live session and launched it. This gave a warning, that points to some incomplete partition table presumably written during Win8 installation. As win8 still boots and even gparted does not allow me to see the logical partition, i think I need to first fix the partition table without ruining my WIn8 installation?

Does anyone have a clue about what this error messge exactly means and how to create this obscure 'fake msdos' partition table that Linux needs?

Thanks in advance!