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After replacing my old HDD in notebook with new one (Momentum XT 500GB if it matters) I tried to install dual-boot: Windows 7 64-bit and Debian 6.0.5.

I tried to start with Windows, but after successful installation, when I moved to Debian installer, it appeared that it's partition tool doesn't recognize any partision at all (see it as 500.1 free space). Despite my efforts, eventually I had to give up and clean everything up and install Linux on newly partitioned disk.

I hoped that when I install Win7 again I use unallocated space and finish it. But then I saw information that Windows cannot be installed on this partition because it's GPT style.

I tried several times removing partitions with partitioning tools of both installers, creating NTFS partitions with debian but nothing worked and I ran out of ideas.

Is there a way to make visible to Debian installer partitions created by Windows, or to get rid of GPT partition? I really need both systems and I am ready to provide all information needed.

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Generally speaking, don't install one OS in a partition created by another. Installing Window first always works best. When you install windows, you should see;

200GB NTFS Partition C:/
300GB Unallocated Space

Then the Debian installer should be able to create its partitions in the unallocated space.

Assuming you did all that correctly, you might be having a hardware issue, the debian releases tend to be a bit far behind with drivers. For example, debian was not able to detect my SSD, USB3 or Blu-Ray devices whatsoever. To fix this, I installed debian with a newer kernel (3.something) from debian-backports, and everything worked perfectly.

Check out http://backports-master.debian.org/

And for some handily-packaged installers (I used the USB installer) head to http://kmuto.jp/debian/d-i/

Hope that helps, I can't think of anything else right now.

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  • I took the hint with hardware issue, and tried to solve problem with RIP Linux. Thanks to that I found out that everything was caused by redundant GPT left by some earlier experiments with other OS. And figuring out how to remove it was easy.
    – maddening
    Commented Jul 18, 2012 at 0:52
  • Glad to hear you got it sorted, feel free to answer your own question and tick it, might help someone in the distant future :P
    – lynks
    Commented Jul 18, 2012 at 11:48

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