strange problem with gparted.

[Joep L. Blom]

On 09/02/11 16:32, Rashkae wrote:
> On 11-02-08 05:17 PM, Joep L. Blom wrote:
>>>>
>>>
>>> Can you post the output of fdisk -lu /dev/sda?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Rashkae,
>> I had to work so now I am back at my system.
>> Here is the output:
>> joep at Laguna-new:~/Utube/utubeqt$ sudo fdisk -lu /dev/sda
>> [sudo] password for joep:
>>
>> Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
>> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 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: 0xb419b419
>>
>> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
>> /dev/sda1 * 63 102398309 51199123+ 83 Linux
>> /dev/sda2 102398310 1953520064 925560877+ 5 Extended
>> /dev/sda5 102398373 517678559 207640093+ 83 Linux
>> /dev/sda6 517678560 534064859 8193150 82 Linux swap / Solaris
>> /dev/sda7 534064923 743793434 104864256 83 Linux
>>
>> I will look at the links you gave and Gary (Noop) gave me also some
>> links. I keep you all informed.
>> Joep
>>
>
> If there is something fundamentally wrong with your partition layout, it
> is far beyond my my understanding to see it. I do find the gaps between
> partitions a little odd. My guess was that some partitions were
> created/resized by a program that aligned them to track or cylinder, and
> some partitions were not. At first I thought that Lucid had aligned some
> new partitions to Mib, but only one of your partitions starts at a
> sector that is evenly divisble by 8 (which indicates it would be
> properly aligned for newer 4k sector drives.)
>
> In either case, either there is something wrong here that I don't see,
> some of your partition meta data is wrong/corrupted in such a way that
> does not seem to negatively affect the kernel and fdisk, you have found
> some obscure bug in libparted, or some unholy combination of the above.
> My suggestion(s) therefore:
>
> Find the libparted support forum/mailing list and bring this to their
> attention. I would think, if you do get this noticed by one of the
> developers there, they would know more about partitioning than anyone on
> Ubuntu Users list.
>
> Whether what causes the issue is identified or not, so as to avoid
> potential future snags, I would re-partition this drive. And by
> repartition, I mean, backup each partition, zero the drive (dd
> if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda) and start from scratch. But hold off on this
> step if you are not comfortable with resolving UUID issues that come
> from drive transfer (either by recording and restoring your original
> UUID's, or changing the system files where UUID's are needed)
>

Rashkae,
Thanks very much for the attention you have given my problem. I have 
done nothing extraordinary when I initialized the drive. I did that 
approx. 3 months ago when I replaced a faulty disk but I simply cannot 
remember how I exactly did it. When I still had my business we logged 
all those things but since my retirement I have become very sloppy in 
logging events that are not logged automatically.
I will follow your advice and start looking into the libparted forum and 
see if there some info can be given. At the moment I will keep the disk 
as is and not do all the hassle of repartitioning as I don't think it a 
serious error. It is not that I cannot cope with UUID's etc. but at the 
moment it's too much of a hassle to do as I need time for my other 
activities (although that sounds strange from a pensioner!).
I will keep you posted.
Joep