On 02/06/2011 02:13 PM, Dale Snell wrote:
> On Sat, 5 Feb 2011 09:10:21 -0800
> Michael Moore<[email protected]>  wrote:
>
>> fdisk -l shows this now:
>>
>> Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
>> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 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: 0x74b860c1
>>
>>     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
>> /dev/sda1   *           1         192     1536000   27  Unknown
>> Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
>> /dev/sda2             192       19882   158165141    7  HPFS/NTFS
>> /dev/sda3           37729       38914     9512960   17  Hidden HPFS/NTFS
>> /dev/sda4           24981       37729   102398977    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
>> /dev/sda5           24981       37206    98190336   83  Linux
>> /dev/sda6           37206       37729     4207616   82  Linux swap / Solaris
>>
>> Partition table entries are not in disk order
>
> ======%<------ snip! ------>%======
>
>> It seems to indicate that /dev/sda1 is an EISA partition, and
>> I'm not really clear on what that means or whether I actually
>> need it.  My problem is that I wanted to try installing Arch
>> Linux and Arch uses cfdisk for the install.  cfdisk doesn't
>> like the fact that /dev/sda1 doesn't end on a cylinder boundary
>> and it craps out with a fatal error, saying something about me
>> having illegal partitions (grrr).
>
> I submit that cfdisk is complaining about the partition limits,
> not the type ID of sda1.  Note that the End&  Start blocks of
> sda1 and sda2 are the same.  The same holds true for sda4/sda3,
> sda5/sda6, and sda6/sda3. This is bad.  Though you're not likely
> to ever reach the last block of a partition, it is possible.  In
> which case, the starting block of the next partition would be
> overwritten, which would hose the whatever filesystem is resident
> in that partition.  This could make for a very bad day indeed.

Well, that's disturbing.  I wonder why all those other partitions (after 
sda2) are so configured.

I don't remember the exact error message from cfdisk, but it was 
something along the lines of the partition not ending on a sector 
boundary or a cylinder boundary.  Nothing about type ID.

> (FWIW:  A list of partition types I found on the web lists ID 27
> as "'PQservice' -- Acer hidden rescue partition.  Must be FAT32.
> Press Alt-F10 during boot to start this.  Also other
> manufacturers use this type for their rescue partition."  See
> <http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitions/partition_types-1.html>.)

Thanks for finding that.  I think the manual is rather confusingly 
written because it claims that the recovery process will (or can, 
depending upon which option you choose) destroy all other partitions, 
but I suspect that it really won't.  I bet it leaves /dev/sda1 in tact.

Michael
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