10.4 Partition Disks Error Unable satisfy constraints, overlapping partitions

[Basil Chupin]

On 27/04/10 14:06, giovanni_re wrote:
> Anyone seeing (seen) this error?
>
> This is on a laptop, 40GB, that has been running linux ok for 8 months.
>
> Compaq Evo N610c, maybe 2003-2006, 1GB RAM, 40G HD.
>
> Has a windows partition, then I shrunk that, made some partitions for OS, Data, swap,&  put KUbuntu 9.04 on.  Worked fine.  Later I put 9.10 on, which booted, but I didn't use cause it had graphics problems that I was told there were a few fixes for (X fails with small graphics buffer), but I never had time to implement the fix, cause I only used the laptop rarely.
>
> But, there was some GRUB issue occurring about the time of the 9.10 install - weird, something about UUID's from 9.10 that 9.04 didn't have???  Like, the system would apt update, or add packages, but upon reboot it's the same unchanged 9.04 system.  Weird.  But, since I rarely used it, it still worked fine for all I needed basically, web browsing, so I never had time to fully investigate&  fix that.
>
>
> So, now I want to try 10.4.  But I can't create a partition with the manual partitioner from the i386 alternate installer, the "rc" release candidate from April 19th ISO.
>
> There's about 10GB free in the logical extended partition, but when i try to create a 5GB partition, I get this error:
> "Partition Disks>  Error: Unable to satisfy all constraints on the partition
>   : Can't have overlapping partitions."
>
> I didn't see an overlap. So, I deleted off the 9.10 partitions,&  try to create a partition for 10.4, but get the same "overlap" error.
>
> Now it won't boot into anything, even when i tell it to boot into 9.04 - (so, I again conclude the 9.4 was somehow booting from/through the 9.10 partition - there was some kind of GRUB problem there.)  No problem, I merely want to get 10.4 on there,&  will let that installer refind the 9.04 using GRUB.
>
> So, again I run the installer, use rescue mode, fdisk -l, all looks fine, no overlap.  fdisk -l has the detailed cyl/sector start/ends, but says it isn't for large drives. So, I used parted, created a 5GB partition, which the manual partitioner sees fine.
>
> Now the manual partitioner sees the 5GB new partition, but it isn't ext3 formatted.  so, in the manual partitioner I delete the 5GB partition I'd just created,&  then try to create back a 5 GB partition - fails again with the overlap error.
>
>
> ==
> So, is there a way to force the manual installer partitioner to give more detailed info than "overlapping"?  Like, what are the numeric values it sees???
>
> Any suggestions of how to _debug_ this problem/situation - ie, to find out what the sw thinks the error is exactly, not just a work around like "use a rescue disk to partition it correctly, then install 10.4".
>
> Ie, if there is some bug (like overlap), I want to find out where that is.  If there is _not_ an overlap,&  the installer partioner has a bug, how can that bug be tracked down??
>
> ==
> Suggestions?
>
> Thanks. :)
>    

I came across a similar problem. The error message tells you nothing 
meaningful so I gave up trying to figure it out.

It seems that the built-in partitioner has a problem with understanding 
what is going on when you have a remnant of Windows partition and then 
some free space into which you want to install Ubuntu. I think I know 
the reason but it matter nought for you and for me.

What I did is to use GPARTED - you can get a copy of it from the 'Net - 
and use that to first create and format the partitions you want for 
Ubuntu. Then when you are installing Ubuntu you can use the Advanced 
option to "tell" Ubuntu how you want the partitions to be mounted (in 
fstab).

But just stepping back a bit. With Karmic (9.10) came grub2 which is 
different to what is used in 9.04, and it also recognises ext4 as the 
filesystem. Need to keep this in mind when recreating grub like you were 
trying to do.

BC


-- 
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
                                                                     Galileo Galilei