Interesting! I've used Linux for around 18 years now and played with many of the different distros, Febora is not one of them. I believe what you are telling me, however something is just not right here.
You said , " That is my issue. None of the Linux distros detect the partition." How do you know this? What other Linux distros have you tried to install on you laptop? Saying that none of the distros will detect your partitions is a pretty broad statement, there are just too many different Linux distros out there for you too have tried all of them. Sorry, I just can't accept that statement.
Indulge me for a minute here, this is what I recommend you do, I would you to download a certain version on Linux Mint, then I want you to take that download and use ti to make a USB Boot drive with. Use a USB flash drive with a minimum of 8GB or larger for the USB boot drive. Once you finish making your boot drive i want you to insert it in one of your USB ports , shut down your laptop and then restart forcing a boot from the USB instead of your HDD.
The version of Linux I want you too use is Linux Mint 13 - KDE (32). Here's the download link for that .iso
https://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=115
Go there, choose the mirror you want to download it from and begin the download.
There a a lot of newer versions on Linux Mint available but I want you to use Mint 13 - KDE (32) for a few different reasons. The main reason is I know for a fact that this particular version of Mint comes with a very reliable partition editing program preinstalled which eliminates the need to update Mint 13 so we can go straight to the partition editing program and run a couple of test on your HDD and see what the results are. I also have my reasons for using the 32 but version instead of the 64 bit version which I'm not going into at this time.
If you don't know how to make a bootable USB drive let me know and I'll feed you the instructions.
Before your laptop will boot from any drive other that your HDD you have to change the boot order for your drives in your BIOS set-up. There is an alternate way to force a boot from a drive other than the HDD on most computers and laptops. After you start your laptop, but before your laptop has a chance to load the BIOS, you can press and hold the F12 key on your keyboard. This will give you a screen where you can choose which drive to boot from for this session. Select the USB drive and hit enter. Your laptop will boot from the flash drive now and you will have a full function Linux OS up and running on you computer..
After everything is finished loading and you are looking at the desktop on the bottom left corner of your screen you will see a blue button with a "K" on it, right click on that button and select "Switch to classic menu style". next left click on the same button with the "K" on it, move your pointer up the menu where it says "System", to the right of the "system" menu a second menu will pop open. slide your pointer too the right and select "KDE Partition Manager" and left click on that. A window for the KDE Partition Editor should open up.
On the left side of that window you will see a pane labeled Devices. In this pane both your HDD and your SSD should be listed. Left click on your HDD and in the pane on the right all of the different partitions on your HDD should now be shown. Not only the ones you know about, but any hidden partitions (if there are any) on that drive will also show up.
if the KDE Partition Manage shows only one partition on your HDD, then there is only one partition on that drive, period! If it shows three or more partitions on that drive then there is a problem with the Fedora software you are trying to install and I would suggest you trash it. You can right click on any partition in the right pane and select "properties" then left click to get some additional information about that partition.
This is a 100% fail-safe and reliable test. it will not damage or alter any of the data you already have on your HDD in any way UNLESS YOU CLICK ON SOMETHING OTHER THAN WHAT i JUST TOLD YOU TO CLICK ON. And, even if you should happen to click on something else before it will make any changes it will present you with a window making you verify that you want to make the changes and warning of what might happen if your do make the changes.
it will also tell you exactly how many partitions the HDD has on it. If it only shows one partition, then regardless of what you think, there will be only one partition. If it shows 10 partitions, then there are 10 partitions. Regardless of what you think or what you believe, the results that the KDE Partition Manager presents you with are fact, not fiction.This test will not lie!
Please let me know if you need any help making the USB Boot Drive or forcing your laptop to boot from the USB drive, and PLEASE let me know what the results of this test are. Too many times someone will ask for help, receive it and we never know if the help we offered was of any use at all. If our help works they just move on and never say "thanks" or "it worked" or "no help at all" and we are left setting in the dark.
I look forward too hearing back from you.