[SOLVED] what does following cfdisk error mean and how to fix it

[fishin4guitars]

FATAL ERROR: Bad primary partition 1: Partition ends in the final partial cylinder.

This was thrown while trying to use cfdisk during the Arch install.
Am trying to dual boot ubuntu 10.10 and Arch.
Partitioned hd with gparted before install attempt into two partitions (excluding already existing swap): Ubuntu on the first and Arch on the second.

So, as the thread title says:
- What does this error mean?
- What needs to happen in order to fix it?

[rcgreen]

Did you partition before or after installing Ubuntu?
Does Ubuntu boot and work OK? If yes, boot it,
open a terminal and execute the command
sudo fdisk -l
This will report the status of existing partitions.

[zenwalker]

See:
How to fix FATAL ERROR: Bad primary partition 1: Partition ends in the final partial cylinder It needs more code

[fishin4guitars]

@rcgreen:
What should be looking for in fdisk -l's output? What would indicate a problem?

@zenwalker:
Thanks for the article. I know that my partitions aren't overlapping because I put a 100MB blank area between them.

fdisk's output:

Device.....Boot...Start...........End.......Blocks............Id...System
/dev/sda1...*...........1..........39163...314575773+.83..Linux
/dev/sda2..........181653......182402.6010881.......5....Extended
/dev/sda3..........39177........78338...314568765...83..Linux
/dev/sda5..........181653......182402.6010880.......82..Linux swap / Solaris

In order on disk:

/dev/sda1...*...........1..........39163...314575773+.83..Linux
/dev/sda3..........39177........78338...314568765...83..Linux
empty................~78500.....~182000
/dev/sda2..........181653......182402.6010881.......5....Extended
/dev/sda5..........181653......182402.6010880.......82..Linux swap / Solaris

[Anspliff]

I had a similar issue when working on a dual boot system and installing arch. What I ended having to do was manually partition the drive with a boot disc like hirens. Not a fan but nothing else would allow me to complete the task. Besides that my buddy didn't want to loose his lame windows install. But that was ntfs as well. Maybe no help at all but maybe some insight.

[rcgreen]

It may be that cfdisk complains about things that are
of no consequence. You already have a partition created
for the installation, go ahead and install.

[Xheralt]

It may be that cfdisk complains about things that are
of no consequence. You already have a partition created
for the installation, go ahead and install.

It wouldn't be a "FATAL" error if if were something of no consequence.

Sounds like repartitioning from scratch is the only option. You really don't need the "no-man's land" between the Linux partitions, if your partitioner does it right the first time. To my eye, the empty chuck looks substantial in size. Is it "just" a buffer zone, or did you have a future use for it in mind?

Also: why even make an extended partition? If it's only going to contain one partition (swap), and the total number of partitions will be four (Ubuntu, Arch, empty, swap), and never exceed that number, why not just make them all primary? Or, if you suspect the empty chunk will later be subdivided, put *it* in the extended partition now, otherwise you might have trouble modifying the partitioning later -- you can only have ONE extended partition, and it MUST be contiguous. The result would look something like this:

/dev/sda1...*...........1..........39163...314575773+.8 3..Linux
/dev/sda2..........39177........78338...314568765...83. .Linux
/dev/sda3..........783xx......182402...%whatever%...... 5.. ..Extended
empty................783xx........181652....%whate ver%
/dev/sda5..........181653......182402.6010880.......82. .Linux swap / Solari

If the partitioning tools of the first distro I'm installing in a multiboot aren't what I want, I'll use PartedMagic or similar specialist livecd to have full gui for partitioning in advance. I dislike the minimalist cfdisk, and if you specify numbers manually it is easy to go wrong, transpose digits, etc. Better to drag gui slider bars and let the partitioner do the math for you when possible.

[fishin4guitars]

Sounds like repartitioning from scratch is the only option. You really don't need the "no-man's land" between the Linux partitions, if your partitioner does it right the first time. To my eye, the empty chuck looks substantial in size. Is it "just" a buffer zone, or did you have a future use for it in mind?

Also: why even make an extended partition? If it's only going to contain one partition (swap), and the total number of partitions will be four (Ubuntu, Arch, empty, swap), and never exceed that number, why not just make them all primary? Or, if you suspect the empty chunk will later be subdivided, put *it* in the extended partition now, otherwise you might have trouble modifying the partitioning later -- you can only have ONE extended partition, and it MUST be contiguous. The result would look something like this...

If the partitioning tools of the first distro I'm installing in a multiboot aren't what I want, I'll use PartedMagic or similar specialist livecd to have full gui for partitioning in advance. I dislike the minimalist cfdisk, and if you specify numbers manually it is easy to go wrong, transpose digits, etc. Better to drag gui slider bars and let the partitioner do the math for you when possible.

I was (and kinda still am) new enough to linux that the thought that something deserving its own partition could be smaller than 100MB is a new one. The reason I put it there is because according to the article posted by zenwalker, the problem could be that partitions are overlapping (though that seems to be a hard thing to do).

The reason there is an extended partition is because thats how the Ubuntu installer set it up .

I actually use gparted whenever I need to move partitions around. The only reason I'm using cfdisk is because it's what the Arch installer puts you into. I was hoping that after 'partitioning' (aka entering cfdisk and exiting, seeing as the drive is already partitioned the way I want it) it would give me the option to choose the partition to install on.

Anspliff, I actually used an ubuntu 10.04 live cd with gparted to make a partition for Arch. What did you do in the install after you used your live cd's partitioner? (If you remember, that is).

rcgreen, I'm inclined to agree with you about cfdisk. After digging around the interwebs, there were several complaints about similar errors (and there might have been a bug report, too). I just want to cover my bases before I declare cfdisk stupid.

[Anspliff]

Well you really have two options with that. I dont recommend this first way as it is not the easiest route to go with installing Arch. The prepare a partition or somthing to that effect section in the Arch Wiki article install from existing Linux is a way to do that. That uses mkfs and so on. As for the /arch/setup and the way I am guessing you where installing once you are at step "3 Prepare Hard Drive(s)" you can select Option "3 Manually Configure block devices, file systems and mount points". You can then choose your access method (uuid maybe a good route to go) and then it will list your partitions and current file systems. Select your partitions then the File Systems configure and install.

[fishin4guitars]

Anspliff, what do you mean by 'this first way'? Do you mean partitioning outside of the install, then telling Arch the partition to set up on?

I never thought of trying to install from inside my other OS. I love how Linux is just that flexible. I googled that part of the arch wiki, and it's the next method I'll try. Thanks for pointing that out.

To wrap this post out, a newb question.
uuid is a form of identifying a partition, correct?