Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary

wood_morris · 01-26-2005, 03:30 PM

Installed Debian 2.4.18-bj2.4 on a 80 GB hard drive, used the CD install to partition the drive and thought everything was working OK until I ran a fdisk -l to check the partitions:

Disk /dev/hdc: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 10011 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdc1 * 1 2 9544+ 83 Linux
Partition 1does not end on cylinder boundary:
phys=(18, 15, 63) should be (18, 254, 63)

/dev/hdc2 2 266 2929752 82 Linux swap
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary:
phys=(1023, 15, 63) should be (1023, 254, 63)

/dev/hdc3 366 1096 5858504 83 Linux
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary:
phys=(1023, 15, 63) should be (1023, 254, 63)

/dev/hdc4 1096 5351 34180776 5 Extended
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary:
phys=(1023, 15, 63) should be (1023, 254, 63)

/dev/hdc5 1096 1218 976720+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdc6 1218 1947 5859472+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdc7 1947 2676 5859472+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdc8 2676 2798 976720+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdc9 2798 3163 2929720+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdc10 3163 3892 5859472+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdc11 3892 4622 5859472+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdc12 4622 5351 5859472+ 83 Linux

I found this explanation in a forum:
"When partitioning with fdisk, set the size selection mode to "cylinders"
rather than "megabytes", and the result will cleanly break on cylinder
boundaries."

Will I need to reinitilize the partitions and re-install? I didn't notice any option to specify cylinders. I had been installing using 2.2.20 and it didn't have any problem creating the same partitions correctly - it only happened when I used the 2.4.18-bj2.4 install.

Matir · 01-26-2005, 04:37 PM

These are only warnings as far as I know. What will probably happen is a small amount of space will become unusable.

wood_morris · 01-26-2005, 05:30 PM

Thanks for the response! This will be for a web server so I am afraid to leave it like this.

I decided to repartition the disks and reinstall using Debian 3.0r4 CDs. The partitions were all OK at that point - fdisk -l showed no problems.

I have a PRO/1000 NIC card on the motherboard that wasn't supported using the normal install so I have to recompile the kernel (make mrproper, make menuconfig) and select the driver for it and then install it. The NIC card works fine after that, but just now I noticed that this recompiled kernel is what's causing the partition messages?

What can I do? I need to have that Pro/1000 support. I appreciate any insight anyone can give me on this.

makuyl · 01-26-2005, 05:39 PM

That was not just a warning, this kind of thing is very dangerous:
/dev/hdc11 3892 4622 5859472+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdc12 4622 5351 5859472+ 83 Linux

The next partition starts at the same point where the previous ends, which can lead to data corruption if some bytes are written to the wrong partition.

If it was me, and especially concerning a server, I would doublecheck fdisk -l to see that the problem is gone.

wood_morris · 01-26-2005, 08:34 PM

I went back to my original plan: Did a Debian 2.2.20 install, then downloaded the 2.4.28 kernel and compiled a new kernel so I could get the Pro/1000 NIC support.

Fdisk -l now shows the correct parameters for the partitions, even after recompiling the 2.4.28 kernel.

The only thing that I can think that caused the problem was the install of the 2.4.18-bf24 kernel then the recompiling of the 2.4.28 kernel over the 2.4.18-bf24 kernel. I really am not qualified to say what caused the problem.

Thanks for your postings!!!

prabhat3107 · 03-12-2009, 03:15 AM

I was playing with parted. I could discover the following

1. I have created two primary partitions.

Code:

[root@rhel5s1 ~]# parted /dev/hda print

Model: VMware Virtual IDE Hard Drive (ide)
Disk /dev/hda: 2147MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size   Type     File system  Flags
 1      0.51kB  512MB   512MB  primary  ext2              
 2      512MB   1024MB  512MB  primary  ext2              

Information: Don't forget to update /etc/fstab, if necessary.             

[root@rhel5s1 ~]#

2. I have checked with fdisk.

Code:

[root@rhel5s1 ~]# fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 2147 MB, 2147483648 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4161 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1         993      500000   83  Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hda2             993        1985      500000   83  Linux
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.

3. then I verified the partition table with fidisk's v command

Code:

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/hda: 2147 MB, 2147483648 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4161 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1         993      500000   83  Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hda2             993        1985      500000   83  Linux
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Command (m for help): v
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
Partition 1: head 64 greater than maximum 16
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
Partition 2: head 127 greater than maximum 16
2194303 unallocated sectors

Command (m for help):

4. Then I used the expert mode in fdisk

Code:

Command (m for help): x

Expert command (m for help): v
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
Partition 1: head 64 greater than maximum 16
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
Partition 2: head 127 greater than maximum 16
2194303 unallocated sectors

Expert command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/hda: 16 heads, 63 sectors, 4161 cylinders

Nr AF  Hd Sec  Cyl  Hd Sec  Cyl     Start      Size ID
 1 00   0   2    0  63   2   62          1    1000000 83
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
 2 00  63   3   62 126   3  124    1000001    1000000 83
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
 3 00   0   0    0   0   0    0          0          0 00
 4 00   0   0    0   0   0    0          0          0 00

This clearly shows that parted is not creating overlapping partitions

j.smith1981 · 08-28-2009, 05:57 AM

I am getting a very similar response from fdisk myself running Fedora 11 seems fine when I look at /dev/sda from expert mode.

I get this response:

Quote:

Disk /dev/sda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 60801 cylinders

Nr AF Hd Sec Cyl Hd Sec Cyl Start Size ID
1 80 1 1 0 127 37 25 63 409600 83
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
2 00 127 38 25 254 63 1023 409663 380723200 8e
3 00 254 63 1023 254 63 1023 381132863 595635202 83
4 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00

Its a relatively big Hard drive for an old EIDE hard drive using it as a back system and local network DNS (not allowing it for public resolving yet will have a bash at doing that later on to see what its like get some test results from friends of mine, any response on tips and tutorials for that would be greatly appreciated, pm me please).

But looking at the other posts I would be right in assuming all is fine with my partition tables yes?

Thanks,
Jeremy.