I don't see partition

[hihat]

Dear Ones

I have a x64-system with 2 Harddrives, 1x 80 GB SATA (sda), 1x 160 GB SATA (sdb).
On sda I have 4 partitions (fat32,ntfs,ntfs,fat32), from which 2 (the middle ones) are with windows os (xp 64 and w2k).
On sdb I have again 4 partitions (4xntfs), data, backup and 2 partitions I kept to install kubuntu or another linux distro. Unfortunately, the installation routine does recognize all partitions of sda, but only one partition on sdb of 40 GB size (although the first partition is 90 gb). I tried with fedora installer but it gave me the same result -> so I couldn't install linux / kubuntu yet.
any advice?

[analyticalman]

Re: I don't see partition

You cannot install linux on ntfs or Fat32 partitions. You must reformat the partition you want to use with a linux compatible file system (such as ext3) You should also have another partition formatted as linux swap

Instead of reformatting - you could also just delete the partitions that you were going to install linux on and let the installer (I think you will need the alternative one) do the work for you

Here is a rather neat guide that illustrates what you need.

http://psychocats.net/ubuntu/partitioning.html

[hihat]

Re: I don't see partition

thank you for the reply, I'm well aware of this, it was not my first linux, although I changed back to Windows for some software...
I wanted to reformat those partitions with linux-owned filesystems but the problems is I don't get them shown! Just one partition for the whole 160 gb and this is displayed to be of 40 gb size.
I ask myself whether part of the problem is that the disk was initialised by windows (allthough the flawlessly recognized sda was so too) or that I need to change its mode by the bios or jumpers as 40 GB seems like a limit for s.th.
other ideas than?
thanks

[analyticalman]

Re: I don't see partition

What are you using to "see" the partitions? I use the gparted live CD Does that show its disks and partitions?