Partitioning problem

[Bob]

** Reply to message from Colin Watson <cjwatson at ubuntu.com> on Sun, 8 Dec 2013
23:17:42 +0000

** Reply to message from Colin Watson <cjwatson at ubuntu.com> on Sun, 8 Dec 2013
23:17:42 +0000

> On Sat, Dec 07, 2013 at 11:45:25AM -0800, Bob wrote:
> > Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
> > 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
> > Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
> > Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
> > I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
> > Disk identifier: 0xdf5ee111
> > 
> >    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> > /dev/sda1   *          63       16064        8001    a  OS/2 Boot Manager
> > Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
> > /dev/sda4           16065   703309823   351646879+   5  Extended
> > Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary.
> > /dev/sda5           16128    10265534     5124703+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
> > /dev/sda6        10265598    30748409    10241406    b  W95 FAT32
> > Partition 6 does not start on physical sector boundary.
> > /dev/sda7       781461504   976771071    97654784   83  Linux
> > /dev/sda8       703324160   781449215    39062528   82  Linux swap / Solaris
> > /dev/sda9       625184768   703309823    39062528   83  Linux
> > 
> > The Ubuntu partitions are listed backwards.
> 
> There's actually nothing that says partitions have to be in numerical
> order on the disk, and it often works out to be actively a good idea for
> them not to be - better to insert partitions out of order than to change
> an existing partition's number.

Sound almost as bad as Windows assigning drive letters.  Being fairly new to
Linux I expected it would use the partition name or ID instead of its position
on the disk to identify partitions.


> > Why would any program change the end of the extended partition end unless you
> > were purposely changing the size of the extended partition?
> 
> The extended partition has little real meaning beyond being a container
> for logical partitions.  It'd be user-hostile to require people to
> manually resize the extended partition in order to insert more logical
> partitions, so partman manages the extended partition's bounds
> implicitly.

I have a different take on this.  When I define something I expect it to stay
the way I set it up or at least ask me if I want to change it.  The disk was
not originally partitioned by Ubuntu and the extended boot record had the end
as the last sector on the disk.  So in this case the Ubuntu install made it
smaller.  It not only made it smaller but did not include two of the Ubuntu
partitions because the last extended partition in the chain was not the last
extended partition in included within the extended boot record.


> That said, of course you're correct that the extended partition should
> cover all the logical partitions; something >= 976771071 is the correct
> endpoint here.  Could you attach /var/log/installer/partman so I can see
> what the installer thought it was doing?

I am also sending this message to your email address as I don't think
attachments are allowed on the mailing list.

Resending after deleting the attachment because the message was too large.

-- 
Robert Blair