Partition and Wireless issues.

[Dazereth]

I don't come on very often. Usually when I really need some help.

So here is the deal. I'm booting from disc on a compaq presario F700. Somehow, I messed everything up and now it's not reading that I have an OS. Which was previously vista. Now, when I boot from disc and try to install no partitions come up. I did open the blasted thing to clean it not too long but as far as I know, nothing dislodged.

It is a laptop, btw. So, my kneejerk reaction is that the hard-drive got damaged or knocked loose. I also tried using kill-drive to erase it so I could start fresh, also no Hard drive detected. So, I'm going to try that. In the meantime I have another issue.

When booting from disc I can't seem to get the drivers for my wireless adapter to install. I have them. Madwifi for AR5001X but I don't know where to put them via terminal.

I r noob. Assistance perhaps?

[devils casper]

Boot up from LiveCD of any Linux distro and execute fdisk -l command in Terminal. Post output here.

sudo fdisk -l

[Dazereth]

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -1
fdisk: invalid option -- '1'

Usage: fdisk [-b SSZ] [-u] DISK     Change partition table
       fdisk -l [-b SSZ] [-u] DISK  List partition table(s)
       fdisk -s PARTITION           Give partition size(s) in blocks
       fdisk -v                     Give fdisk version
Here DISK is something like /dev/hdb or /dev/sda
and PARTITION is something like /dev/hda7
-u: give Start and End in sector (instead of cylinder) units
-b 2048: (for certain MO disks) use 2048-byte sectors

Not sure what all that means.

[andr0x]

its an 'L' as in the letter, not the number one.

[Dazereth]

Well, I tried "L' and it did nothing. So, I figured 1 was what he wanted.

[waterhead]

It is a small "L".

If you use a recent Linux LiveCD, the Atheros wireless drivers should already be installed on it. Atheros is one of the best supported wireless brands in Linux.

[Dazereth]

I think it's 9.10.
My issue is, during the installation process, at the partitions screen, there are no hard drives listed. At all.

I had vista installed. Now if I try and boot without the linux disc it says.

NVIDIA Boot Agent 247.0541
Copyright (C) 2001-2005 NVIDIA Corporation
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: exiting NVIDIA Boot Agent
Operating System not found

If I boot with the disc, I can install up until the select partition area.

Edit: I am on my desktop right now.

[waterhead]

We want you to boot the Ubuntu CD as a Live CD, not try to install it. Then run the command.

[Dazereth]

It doesn't matter how I boot. I've done it from live and I've done after installation attempt.
sudo fdisk -l gives me nothing, in any of it's variants.
If I try it on either it gives nothing.
If I do exactly as instructed, it ignores me and opens a new line, Like I've done nothing. If say, I capitalize or do something slightly different it will give me an invalid command notice.

edit: I've tried both as root and normal.

[devils casper]

If fdisk -l not displaying anything, something is wrong with Harddisk, cables or BIOS settings. Check in BIOS if Hard disk(s) has been detected.