Partition Error?

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I recently installed Ubuntu 10.4 to my laptop as the sole OS. Everything went fine and I even attempted a custom partition set up. Not bad for a newbie noob

BUT

I've run GParted since (see screenshot below) and I can see unallocated 1Mb sectors between partitions? Is this because

a) I've made the stupid schoolboy error of rounding the numbers up to the nearest zero instead of using the 1024 formula when allocating partition size?

OR

b) some other reason?

Screenshot-1.png


Any ways of correcting this or other suggestions are warmly welcome, just so that I can correct this if and when I re install again

many thanks in advance :)
 
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Maybe an error during install. When you installed and did some custom partitioning, did you click the "file > new" type menu to create new partitions with a custom start and end size? If you did, perhaps you put some rounding in there which might explain the gaps in between.

Just trying some detective work ;)
 
I just defined each partition size as I created them in the custom set up with a new partition table
ie
partition name (/ or /boot or /home etc)
partiton size ( the bit I think I may have fudged it with when I used the up/down arrows and rounded it to the nearest whole number)
file type
etc

For instance the /boot partition should be 100Mb and not 92Mb

That make sense? It's been a long shift and I'm due my sleep :)
 
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output from fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0007ae84

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 12 94208 83 Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 12 18734 150379521 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 12 499 3905536 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 499 6576 48817152 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 6576 18734 97654784 83 Linux


problem might be that I did not define the size of the /boot partition correctly and it's thrown everything out of sync ... might explain why sda3 and sda4 are missing ?

ideas anyone?
 
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Dont have an answer for you.. but I've seen similar behavour from gparted. I have been SURE I created a partition to fill all of the empty space on a disk - only to discover unallocated free space afterwards.
 
Dont have an answer for you.. but I've seen similar behavour from gparted. I have been SURE I created a partition to fill all of the empty space on a disk - only to discover unallocated free space afterwards.

Thanks for the reply :)

Think I'll just ignore it for now. Lappy is working fine and it's not as if it's a mission critical server or anything vital to a network. I'll just try to improve on it next time :):)
 
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
This you can ignore. I've just been reading up on this as I have been unable to tweak my partitioning to prevent these.

Code:
Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          12       94208   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              12       18734   150379521    5  Extended
/dev/sda5              12         499     3905536   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6             499        6576    48817152   83  Linux
/dev/sda7            6576       18734    97654784   83  Linux
This looks odd, where say sda5 ends on 499, sda6 should start on 500. I also can't see where the unallocated hole will fit! It is probably due to fdisk and gparted using different logical drive geometries and with your cylinders being 7.8MB (in fdisk) the start and end round to the same number. My guess anyway :)

Can you run
Code:
fdisk -lu /dev/sda
so that it displays sectors rather than cylinders.

/edit
might explain why sda3 and sda4 are missing
Linux always seems to start logical partitions on 5. Presumably as there can be 4 primary partitions starting the logicals at 5 means there can't be any clashes.
 
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tried running

fdisk -lu /dev/sda

output =

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0007ae84

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 190463 94208 83 Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 192510 300951551 150379521 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 192512 8003583 3905536 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 8005632 105639935 48817152 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 105641984 300951551 97654784 83 Linux


:)

sorry for the scruffy format... I just cut and pasted out of the terminal window :(
 
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You can use the [noparse]
Code:
[/noparse] tags to post with a monospaced font and no parsing for tags etc.

Code:
Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      190463       94208   83  Linux
/dev/sda2          192510   300951551   150379521    5  Extended
/dev/sda5          192512     8003583     3905536   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6         8005632   105639935    48817152   83  Linux
/dev/sda7       105641984   300951551    97654784   83  Linux
That looks absolutely fine, you can see the gaps between partitions but as far as I know nothing in Linux will take exception to the gaps between partitions.

Between sda5 and 6 there are 2048 empty sectors or 2048*512 bytes = 1MB and matches what GParted is saying.
 
can you explain in really easy terms your instructions on using the method of using the code thingy?

sorry this means nothing to me.... I'm old and need easier instructions than that!!! lol

Thanks for all your help Fourstar... top man and really appreciate it.

I notice that the same amount of empty sectors (2048/9) are between sda6 and 7 so that will account for that gap as well.

:)

Code:
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 190463 94208 83 Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 192510 300951551 150379521 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 192512 8003583 3905536 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 8005632 105639935 48817152 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 105641984 300951551 97654784 83 Linux


got the above by putting [ + code + ]

at the beginning and

[ + /code +] at the end so not far away ... what I missing to force the spacing?
 
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Ok, after a little experimentation it appears vBulletin displays multiple spaces as a single one when not using the [noparse]
Code:
[/noparse] tags. In post #8 of this thread your text looks like this:

[img]http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/4263/2123309iz9idop.png[/img]

but when I quote the post it looks like:

[img]http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/9996/94490092.png[/img]

and displays like this when dumped in code tags:
[code]   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      190463       94208   83  Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2          192510   300951551   150379521    5  Extended
/dev/sda5          192512     8003583     3905536   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6         8005632   105639935    48817152   83  Linux
/dev/sda7       105641984   300951551    97654784   83  Linux

If I quote the post where you tried using [noparse]
Code:
[/noparse] I only see one space between each element in a row.

Pasting a bit of output directly from a terminal I get multiple spaces, like this:
74184836.png


I can't think of a good reason why when you posted earlier there were multiple spaces, but the last time there is only one. Did you copy and paste in a different way?

Btw if you want to post [noparse]
Code:
[/noparse] or say [noparse]FSB:DRAM[/noparse] rather than FSB:DRAM you can use [noparse][noparse]FSB:DRAM[/noparse][/noparse]. I only found that out this week when trying to stop smileys destroying any sense my post was making :p
 
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The initial copy and paste from terminal was done by using my mouse and not keyboard shortcut... so perhaps the format was lost when I pasted directly into the message section in the still open window containing the forum page?

Great analysis.. only in the linux forum could we see such a detailed response

Doesn't do much for our geeky reputation though!! hehe

the differnce between here and say the overclocking section, where peeps always hold just a little info back to feel superior. :)
 
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