Disks app complains about "partition table of type atari" - can't partition 2nd hard drive

Before managing partitions, you may first need to format the disk itself.

You can't format a disk that is mounted, so if you cannot unmount the disk from your current installation, you will need do this from a live session (the "Try Ubuntu" option when booting installation media).

Note: Formatting a disk will erase it completely and irreversibly. Always make sure you are working with the right disk.

• Launch the "Disks" application.
• Select your 1TB hard drive from the left side column.
• With your hard drive selected, click the "Drive Options" menu on the top right corner of the window.
• Choose "Format Disk..."
• In most cases, "Quick" and "GPT" are the most appropriate choices. If you're not sure, select these options.
• In the confirmation window, if everything is correct, click "Format".

Once completed, your disk is now freshly formatted. It will have no partitions: the whole drive is "unallocated free space". If you want to add partitions manually, while the disk is still selected in the left column, click the + icon below the graphical representation of your disk to add new partitions.

If you are planning to use this disk to install Ubuntu, you can skip manually adding partitions at this time. The guided options of the Ubuntu installation will be easier if you have unallocated free space.

The tools to use for setting up a disk may vary, but the steps below need to be done in order for things to work. Formatting needs a partition to format, and a partition needs a partition table to be created. Some tools are given as examples for each step, but use the one you prefer. The steps to use a blank disk or start fresh if you have weird things like Atari partition tables:

1. Make a gpt partition table. No sense messing around with DOS partition tables, or any other types. The fdisk command for help is m, and at the bottom of the output, under "Create a new Label", is the g command to create a new empty GPT partition table.
2. Now you may add partitions of the type you need. l lists the available types. likely you might want a swap, ext2, vfat.
3. Write out the new partition table, with the empty partitions you created witht he w command.
4. Put filesystems onto the empty partitions you made. Match the filesystem you create to the partition type you previously selected. e.g. mkfs.msdos for vfat parttiions, mkswap for swap partitions, mkfs.ext4 for ext4 partitions. This is the step you think of as "format" the partition.
5. Make any desired mount points for your new partitions (e.g. for creating a data storage location on /usr/local/data, sudo mkdir /usr/local/data.
6. Mount your new partition, make any directories you want, and exit the /etc/fstab to make the mount automatic every boot. Select the appropriate options for the mount, but "defaults" is really all that is necessary.

Make sure that the volume is not being mounted automatically. Then install and use gparted to view and format the partition.