When Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala came out, I did an upgrade on one of my machines instead of doing a fresh install. I decided it was time to do a fresh install after Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx came out.

I backed up all of my important files and some configuration files to a second drive, /dev/sdb. My previous Ubuntu install was installed on /dev/sda1 and I used the sdb drive for photos and videos.

When the installation got to the point of configuring partitions, I was a little bummed to see that my first drive, /dev/sda, wasn’t included in the list of drives and partitions. This machine needed a fresh install badly, so I posted on the Ubuntu Forums to see if anyone knew of a fix.

After a few days of no replies, gregmo posted and offered a solution. He suggested running the command below while running the live cd, prior to installing. This removes dmraid from the system running off the live cd.

After removing the dmraid package, I fired up the installer and was able to install to /dev/sda1 just fine. For some reason, removing the dmraid package allowed the partition manager to see /dev/sda.

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