starting sector number, 4532393984 exceeds the msdos-partition-table-imposed maximum

[rwbehne1]

gdisk /dev/sda shows this:

p
Disk /dev/sda: 5860533168 sectors, 2.7 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): F9C78116-9D2E-4304-A329-E3A7704EF117
Partition table holds up to 128 entries                                                                                                        
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 5860533134                                                                                    
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries                                                                                              
Total free space is 1328139151 sectors (633.3 GiB)                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                              
Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name                                                                                  
  1              34            2047   1007.0 KiB  EF02  BIOS boot partition                                                                   
  2            2048       209922047   100.1 GiB   8300                                                                                        
  3       209922048      4075401215   1.8 TiB     8300  Linux filesystem                                                                      
  4      5403539456      5860532223   217.9 GiB   8300  Linux filesystem

Why does the KDE partition tool show one thing, and gdisk another?

[oshunluvr]

So you did an install using "Manual Partitioning" and selected /dev/sda2 as root with no other partitions selected? If you chose "Guided" install it might have done whatever it does when you do that.

The way to tell what's what on the drive is to mount all the /dev/sda partitions somewhere and look at the contents. If you look closely at your picture above, you'll see that sda3 and sda4 aren't mounted. You might be looking at the LABELS which doesn't mean they've been touched. However, the partition table in that picture is not the same partition table that you printed above so I can't say what happened. It looks to me like your old MBR partition table is still being read by the installer, which might be why it hung.

Unmount /target, re-run gdisk and verify your partition table. Probably running "sudo partprobe" will reload it correctly. Then mount all the partitions and looks at their contents. Assuming all is well, reboot and attempt the install again. If it's not, you'll have to try and recover your old partitions.

[rwbehne1]

So you did an install using "Manual Partitioning" and selected /dev/sda2 as root with no other partitions selected? If you chose "Guided" install it might have done whatever it does when you do that.

The way to tell what's what on the drive is to mount all the /dev/sda partitions somewhere and look at the contents. If you look closely at your picture above, you'll see that sda3 and sda4 aren't mounted. You might be looking at the LABELS which doesn't mean they've been touched. However, the partition table in that picture is not the same partition table that you printed above so I can't say what happened. It looks to me like your old MBR partition table is still being read by the installer, which might be why it hung.

Unmount /target, re-run gdisk and verify your partition table. Probably running "sudo partprobe" will reload it correctly. Then mount all the partitions and looks at their contents. Assuming all is well, reboot and attempt the install again. If it's not, you'll have to try and recover your old partitions.

Yes, I did manual partitioning, and selected /dev/sda2 to be formatted as btrfs, no other drives to be touched, but I did set mount points for sda3 and sda4 in /mnt.

# umount /target
[B]umount: /target: mountpoint not found[/B]
root@kubuntu:~# partprobe
[B]Warning: The driver descriptor says the physical block size is 2048 bytes, but Linux says it is 512 bytes.[/B]
root@kubuntu:~#

root@kubuntu:~# gdisk /dev/sda
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1

Partition table scan:
MBR: protective   [B]<-----<<< Is this right?[/B]
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 5860533168 sectors, 2.7 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): F9C78116-9D2E-4304-A329-E3A7704EF117
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 5860533134
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 1328139151 sectors (633.3 GiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
 1              34            2047   1007.0 KiB  EF02  BIOS boot partition
 2            2048       209922047   100.1 GiB   8300  
 3       209922048      4075401215   1.8 TiB     8300  Linux filesystem
 4      5403539456      5860532223   217.9 GiB   8300  Linux filesystem

Command (? for help): q
root@kubuntu:~#

I'd say everything is NOT well.

If the problem is that the old MBR partition table is still being read by the installer, how can I check that and correct it? I assumed that switching to GPT would stop the installer from reading the MBR partition table.

ADDED: How does the KDE partition tool and the gdisk programs read the tables? They are disagreeing with each other.

[oshunluvr]

MBR: Protective is correct

This: Warning: The driver descriptor says the physical block size is 2048 bytes, but Linux says it is 512 bytes.

doesn't usually happen to hard drives, usually USB drives. improperly using "dd" can cause it. Have you rebooted?

[rwbehne1]

MBR: Protective is correct

This: Warning: The driver descriptor says the physical block size is 2048 bytes, but Linux says it is 512 bytes.

doesn't usually happen to hard drives, usually USB drives. improperly using "dd" can cause it. Have you rebooted?

The sda wouldn't boot, so I rebooted into the live Drive.

[oshunluvr]

OK, so re-launch the partition manager and see what it says about sda

[rwbehne1]

OK, so re-launch the partition manager and see what it says about sda

KDE partition tool:


gdisk:

root@kubuntu:~# gdisk /dev/sda
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1

Partition table scan:
 MBR: protective
 BSD: not present
 APM: not present
 GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 5860533168 sectors, 2.7 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): F9C78116-9D2E-4304-A329-E3A7704EF117
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 5860533134
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 1328139151 sectors (633.3 GiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
  1              34            2047   1007.0 KiB  EF02  BIOS boot partition
  2            2048       209922047   100.1 GiB   8300  
  3       209922048      4075401215   1.8 TiB     8300  Linux filesystem
  4      5403539456      5860532223   217.9 GiB   8300  Linux filesystem

Command (? for help): q
root@kubuntu:~#

As you can see, they're still in conflict. It looks to me like my old /usr/local (sda4) got completely hosed. It's supposed to still be ext4! I can mount both sda3 and sda4, the /home files are still in sda3, but sda4 appears to be empty. I had a lot of files I archived there to prepare for installing Kubuntu, including 22,000 ebooks, ant it's all gone as far as I can tell!

[GreyGeek]

Oh holy crap with peanuts on top! What the hell is happening NOW?

.....
What has happened? sda3 (my old /home) and sda4 (my old /usr/local) were NOT supposed to be touched, they're both ext4 partitions with important data on them. What has happened here? I carefully set up the install to ONLY install a small system exclusively on sda2. Damnit anyhow! How do I recover from this DISASTER?

Your existing /home and /usr/local were on an EXT4 partition. You gave / to Btrfs and it also includes /home and /user/local, so you were putzing the system. You don't put chevy parts on a ford engine, do you?

I haven't played with 17.04 but every other version of Kubuntu & Neon I've used shows a progress bar. And, I doubt that 17.04 touched partitions that you didn't select during the install.

BTW, the size of the disk is NO indication as to how much DATA is on the disk. What I was asking was how many GB of DATA were in the partitions you wanted to preserve.

IF you haven't backed up that data you were concerned with then it has joined its brethren in the infinite bit bucket in the sky. IF you have then all is not lost.

Either way, what I'd do is reboot the installation USB and this time delete ALL the partitions on sda and create only one, sda1. That's all you really need. Select Btrfs as the file system and assign it to "/". Don't get fancy with small partitions and names like "target". /home will be created automatically. You don't need to create special partitions for subdirectories. Select the option to install multimedia apps but do not select the option to do updates during the install. You can apply updates later. Accept its default grub installation location. After the install is down don't reboot, POWER DOWN. Remove the USB stick and power back up.

[oshunluvr]

GREY GEEK: If he deletes all his data how is he to recover it?

rwbehne1: DON'T WIPE THE DISK OR WRITE ANYTHING TO IT RIGHT NOW!

Possibly you have not lost the data, but you may need to do some recovery. I see the partition tables match up now. See the unallocated section in between sda3 and 4? It looks to me like the old sda4 is not in the partition table but it's still there. The old sector boundaries of sda4 were 4075401216 to 4532393983 - those sectors are in the unallocated portion of your disk, so it's very likely the data is all still there. You can also see the current sda3 partition ends at 4075401215 - exactly one sector before the old sda4 began.

testdisk or parted should be able to recreate the missing partition.

[GreyGeek]

I'm wagering he already has deleted his data because he thinks disk size and data are the same thing. IF he has backed up then his data should be safe and can be restored. IF he hasn't backed up .... that's a good reason to move to Btrfs. He already and a 700Gb HD to which he can send ro snapshots of @ and @home.

[oshunluvr]

I'm wagering he already has deleted his data because he thinks disk size and data are the same thing. And that he will be forced to resort to backups to recover it. IF he hasn't backed up .... that's a good reason to move to Btrfs. He already and a 700Gb HD to which he can send ro snapshots of @ and @home.

I respectfully and totally disagree. Re-partitioning does not remove any data from a drive. It only realigns logical partition boundaries. Assuming the installer did not randomly move about the disk - which I've never experienced - his data is intact. Simply redefining the sector using the old location should, or at least could, restore the data. I've done this - recovered deleted partitions - before. Wiping it clean and giving up isn't the best course of action right now.

BTW, you might go back and read more of the thread - the "/target" partition you referred to is a mount point used by Ubiquity to mount the installation partition during install - not one the user randomly created.

[oshunluvr]

rwbehne1: You should be able to install "testdisk" while running from the USB. Install it, run it, select "no log", and analyse sda. If it does it's job it should find your old sda4. Restore it if you can then re-print your partition table from gdisk and see if it's listed properly (sectors match the number in my last post).

[oshunluvr]

Actually, since you have the exact sector numbers, even gdisk should be able to re-create the missing partition. Simply doing a sector add and entering the specific beginning and ending sector numbers should remake the partition right were it was before.

[rwbehne1]

Your existing /home and /usr/local were on an EXT4 partition. You gave / to Btrfs and it also includes /home and /user/local, so you were putzing the system. You don't put chevy parts on a ford engine, do you?

Why would it "putz" the system? sda3 simply mounts as /media/root/_home/ in the live system, and in the installed system I can mount it any way I like, then copy files from it to @home.

I haven't played with 17.04 but every other version of Kubuntu & Neon I've used shows a progress bar. And, I doubt that 17.04 touched partitions that you didn't select during the install.

BTW, the size of the disk is NO indication as to how much DATA is on the disk. What I was asking was how many GB of DATA were in the partitions you wanted to preserve.

Data size:
/dev/sda3 1.8T 1.4T 404G 78% /media/root/_home

IF you haven't backed up that data you were concerned with then it has joined its brethren in the infinite bit bucket in the sky. IF you have then all is not lost.

Either way, what I'd do is reboot the installation USB and this time delete ALL the partitions on sda and create only one, sda1. That's all you really need. Select Btrfs as the file system and assign it to "/". Don't get fancy with small partitions and names like "target". /home will be created automatically. You don't need to create special partitions for subdirectories. Select the option to install multimedia apps but do not select the option to do updates during the install. You can apply updates later. Accept its default grub installation location. After the install is down don't reboot, POWER DOWN.

Remove the USB stick and power back up.

I can't attempt another install until I have a means of backing up everything, AND fixing whatever gdisk royally screwed up first. Deleting all my partitions, along with the data, is an unkind suggestion. I have apparently already lost everything that WAS in my former /usr/local due to whatever gdisk did to mess everything up the way it did. I don't want to loose another d... thing!

I've been having problems with the external drive, trying to copy anything to it is pathetically slow, and it keeps stalling for 20 minutes at a time. WHY? I don't know. With things not working the way they aren't, I'm now thinking of just going back to ext4, but the problem then is that no one has mentioned how to go about fixing the problem with the partition id being screwed up. Why did the installer think that sda4 needed a btrtfs installed when I explicitly set it to NOT touch that space? Why can't I set aside a portion yo just get a small system in and use usable WITHOUT touching the rest of the drive? Why is that too much to ask? If btrfs cannot live without hogging the entire drive and deleting everything else on it, then it can't be that wonderful.

What exactly happened to my sda4? Did something change the label somewhere, or forget to do it?
Can the data on it be recovered somehow? There must be SOME WAY to recover from this.
How can I tell it to change the label BACK to ext4?
How did gdisk so badly mis-configure the tables so as to confuse the installer?
How can it be corrected?
How can I effectively use this external drive to temporarily back up sda3?

Answering those questions will be much more helpful than telling me to throw away years of data.

[oshunluvr]

I would first attempt to rebuild the missing partition as I suggested using gdisk. Launch it, select "n" for new partition, allow it to be the default partition number "5", then in first sector put 4075401216, in last sector put 4532393983, leave the sector type the default "8300", then write it to disk. Then run "sudo partprobe" (if it errors again, reboot to the liveUSB), then run the partition manager and see where we are.