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I wanted to install Ubuntu 12.04 side by side with Windows 8.1 in my SSD. Windows is already installed in MBR, even though I have a UEFI machine. And so I used the legacy Bios. I have confirmed that Windows is installed as MBR. Also, if the bootable usb drive seen in the boot menu shows [uefi] then it automatically installs it in GPT. I was able to create a bootable usb disk using Rufus 1.4.9 that installs Windows in legacy mode (i.e. there is no [uefi] prefix in the boot menu)

Unfortunately, doing the same method for Ubuntu. It created a uefi based bootable usb. I tried universal usb installer but it is still the same. Booting it, it detects the windows partition and windows recovery partition as free space!

But Windows boots perfectly. Is Ubuntu 12.04 x64 can not be installed in an mbr disk?

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  • Why is windows 8 installed on a MBR partition instead of GPT your problems are because of that. Just make a bootable non-EFI installation disk
    – Ramhound
    Jul 30, 2014 at 1:55
  • How to create a bootable non efi installation? Because is not gpt incompatible with ssd?
    – Xegara
    Jul 30, 2014 at 12:51
  • What makes you think EFI is not compatible with an SSD?
    – Ramhound
    Jul 30, 2014 at 14:59
  • forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2228064
    – Xegara
    Jul 30, 2014 at 15:17
  • Like most things on that website, non-technical people are talking about, something they know nothing about. There is NO reason not to use GPT partitions unless your using SSD software that does not support GPT, and if you are, there is better software that exists that does. Very shortly these operating systems won't even support MBR because we are having into a 3TB+ HDD world.
    – Ramhound
    Jul 30, 2014 at 15:22

1 Answer 1

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If the disk originally used GPT partitions and you used the Windows partitioning software to convert it to MBR, then you've probably got leftover GPT data on the disk, and this leftover GPT data is confusing the libparted library in Linux. This library is used by the Ubuntu installer, which shows MBR disks with leftover GPT data as being completely unpartitioned.

The solution is to erase the remnant GPT data. The easiest way to do this is with my FixParts program, which comes as part of the gdisk package in Ubuntu. Launch fixparts on the disk and answer in the affirmative when it asks if you want to erase the leftover GPT data. See the FixParts documentation for further details.

When you're done, the Ubuntu installer should recognize the Windows partitions. If you have further problems, post back with details.

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