OK I'm confused. There is an MBR, Boot Info Script sees that, and I see there's ~98G on sda that is free space. Yet you're getting the "could not detect partitions or file systems on this device" message? That is very strange.
Let's try a fresh restart with the LiveCD. Bring up a Terminal window and type:
parted -l
and post the full results (as an attachment, or use "[CODE]" tags so it formats correctly).
Then launch the installer until you get this "could not detect partitions" message again. At that point, I'd like for you to quit the installer, head back to terminal and package up the contents of /tmp. Something like:
Code:
su
tar -czvf anaconda.tgz /tmp/
cp anaconda.tgz ~/Documents/
Now your liveuser will have access in the documents folder, to the anaconda.tgz package of log files, which you can directly post here from within the liveuser environment using firefox. The logs will vanish upon restarting. One of the logs should hopefully describe why it thinks this drive doesn't have a partition map.
I don't think it's because this is a 512e AF drive, because I've installed F16 on one myself and don't recall getting this error message. Hmmm.
---------- Post added at 10:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:20 PM ----------
OK I've been able to reproduce the poster's original problem in a Virtual Machine, in F17, and I consider it a bug. Or at least a buggy message. Here's what I did.
I created a GPT disk manually, using gdisk. I then used fdisk to create a competing MBR with the same information. I then launched the Fedora installer, and sure enough it says the device is blank, unpartitioned, or virtual. Well, yes it's virtual but that's not the problem because the original poster is getting this message and I think it's the exact same situation because the first Fedora attempt created a GPT. And then installing Windows would have created an MBR without first destroying the GPT. And now Fedora is seeing both MBR and GPT, and getting confused, and produces a confusing message.
When I choose, Yes discard any data, this blows away the MBR and all data! Very uncool.
When I choose, No, keep any data, it says no usable disks have been found and can't proceed.
I think I have a work around and will post it in a minute.
---------- Post added at 10:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:46 PM ----------
Boot from the LiveCD, go to Terminal
Code:
su
yum install gdisk
Then confirm that you want to install it. Next,
Have it use the MBR, option 1.
'x' to go to the experts menu
'z' to ZAP the GPT. You will say yes to the first option to blank the GPT. And then say no to the second option so that you do NOT blank the MBR. gdisk will then exit.
Now, depending on whether the kernel has received an update for the change in partition map, maybe you can proceed directly to the installer. It might be safer, especially if you get a message after existing gdisk that the kernel is using the old partition map, to just reboot from the LiveCD. You will no longer get the "could not detect partitions".
The installation type for you to choose is "Use Free Space". You can also check "Review and modify partition layout" so you can confirm that it sees your three NTFS (marked as unknown) partitions, and will create a new extended partition with LVM for Fedora. Your Windows 7 installation will stay intact and not need to be shrunk.
Still ... what a nasty user experience.
---------- Post added 16th March 2012 at 12:00 AM ---------- Previous post was 15th March 2012 at 10:59 PM ----------
Anirudha, before fixing this with gdisk, if you can run
parted -l
And let me know if you get a warning message like this:
Warning: /dev/sda contains GPT signatures, indicating that it has a GPT table. However, it does not have a valid fake msdos partition table, as it should. Perhaps it was corrupted -- possibly by a program that doesn't understand GPT partition tables. Or perhaps you deleted the GPT table, and are now using an msdos partitiontable. Is this a GPT partition table? yes/no?
It would be very helpful in providing feedback to parted and anaconda developers if you can do this before fixing the problem as I outlined above. You can answer the above warning message question with control-Z.