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ONEEYEMAN
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2012 10:26 pm    Post subject: [SOLVED]: strange fdisk output Reply with quote

Hi ALL,
I am trying to install Gentoo on my work desktop machine which has Windows 7.
I ran fdisk and to my surprise I see following:

Code:

/dev/sda2p1 ? 1936269394 3772285809 918008208 4f QNX4.x 3rd part.


I have 4 partitions that looks kind of the same, only numbers are different.

Does it mean that Gentoo fdisk and Windows 7 are not compatible?

This is Dell desktop Frankensteined for this work.

Thank you.

It also does not let me change the first sector to be 1. It insists for it to be 2048.


Last edited by ONEEYEMAN on Thu Sep 13, 2012 7:55 pm; edited 1 time in total
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krinn
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2012 11:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

probably use as partition to hold a windows to reinstall it.
and the 2048 start sector is normal.
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Gusar
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2012 11:23 pm    Post subject: Re: strange fdisk output Reply with quote

ONEEYEMAN wrote:
It also does not let me change the first sector to be 1. It insists for it to be 2048.

Why would you want the first sector to be 1? That's whack. 2048 is perfectly ok, it's to provide proper alignment on 4kb/sector or SSD drives, and doesn't hurt even if you have a classic 512b/sector drive. If you for some reason need DOS compatibility, activate the DOS-compatible flag, then the first sector will be 63.

As to your other problem... does the disk by any chance use GPT partitions? fdisk doesn't handle those and should have warned you about it. Do not use fdisk on a GPT-partitioned disk, use either parted or gdisk (which is in the gptfdisk package).
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ONEEYEMAN
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2012 11:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

krinn wrote:

probably use as partition to hold a windows to reinstall it.
and the 2048 start sector is normal.


krinn,
Problem is the desktop was reimaged just prior to installing Windows.
Well, 2048 may be OK, but Handbook refers to 1...

Gusar wrote:

Why would you want the first sector to be 1? That's whack. 2048 is perfectly ok, it's to provide proper alignment on 4kb/sector or SSD drives, and doesn't hurt even if you have a classic 512b/sector drive. If you for some reason need DOS compatibility, activate the DOS-compatible flag, then the first sector will be 63.

Handbook refers to 1 as the first sector for boot partition.

Gusar wrote:

As to your other problem... does the disk by any chance use GPT partitions? fdisk doesn't handle those and should have warned you about it. Do not use fdisk on a GPT-partitioned disk, use either parted or gdisk (which is in the gptfdisk package).

Don't know. I didn't get any warnings...
Is Windows 7 fdisk creates GPT partition?

Thank you, guys.
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Gusar
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2012 11:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ONEEYEMAN wrote:
Handbook refers to 1 as the first sector for boot partition.

It doesn't, look carefully at the output shown there - the unit is cylinders, not sectors. The first cylinder will be at sector 63 when in DOS-compatibility mode, which used to be fdisk's default.

The handbook should seriously be updated here though, cylinder-based addressing is totally outdated, and fdisk doesn't default to DOS-compatible mode anymore.
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krinn
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2012 11:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ONEEYEMAN wrote:

Is Windows 7 fdisk creates GPT partition?

no idea (to create one), but it could use both type (gpt or not, so logic would be saying creating them too, but with microsoft, i generally avoid logic and prefer facts)
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ONEEYEMAN
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 12:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Guys,
Maybe I'm better off with RescueCD?

Thank you.
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Gusar
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 12:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

krinn wrote:
no idea (to create one), but it could use both type

You mean Hybrid MBR? That's fun. And could very well be the case.

@ONEEYEMAN: Use gdisk instead of fdisk, it'll give you more info about the partitions.
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krinn
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 12:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

you would be surprise how file could gave you a good answer too :)
try file -s /dev/devicetocheck
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ONEEYEMAN
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 12:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gusar wrote:

krinn wrote:

no idea (to create one), but it could use both type

You mean Hybrid MBR? That's fun. And could very well be the case.

@ONEEYEMAN: Use gdisk instead of fdisk, it'll give you more info about the partitions.


Do I find it on minimal Gentoo CD?

Thank you.
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ONEEYEMAN
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 12:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

OK, tried gdisk, got following output:

******************************************
Found invalid GPT and valid MBR; converting MBR to GPT format.
This potentially can be dangerous
*****************************************

Pressing 'p' at the gdisk prompt does not yield anything.

So I just quit.

And "file" is not available on minimal CD.

Any other ideas?

Thank you.
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yngwin
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 7:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ONEEYEMAN wrote:
Guys,
Maybe I'm better off with RescueCD?

If you mean the SystemRescueCD, then yes. I find it more convenient.
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ONEEYEMAN
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 7:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

OK, I need to try to reinstall Gentoo more often... ;-)
Turns out I was issuing fdisk /dev/sda1 instead of fdisk /dev/sda

Thank you.
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