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Hi Mick, |
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|
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AFAIK the asterisk behind the partition just indicates, that it is not |
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aligned to a cylinder boundary. I think this doesnt have any effect (or |
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maybe some old OS like DOS depend on it). If you use cfdisk for |
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partitioning you can avoid that by given the space in c(ylinders). e.g. |
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New Partition with a size of '100c'. |
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|
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I guess your hidden partition has something to do with Windows |
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behaviour, because if you install Windows and create partitions during |
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the installation process, it also creates an extra 8MB partition. |
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Maybe gparted adopted that behaviour. |
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|
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But I can't tell you the reason why. Some people say it's for temp data |
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(which I doubt) and others say it's used to store metadatas if the user |
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decides to use flexible disks or software RAIDs. |
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|
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I just can say that windows is running fine without it on my computer, |
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because i decided to partition with cfdisk before running the |
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installation. |
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|
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On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 11:23:27AM +0000, Mick wrote: |
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> Hi All, |
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> |
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> I am resizing a Windows partition to get some space for Gentoo. I |
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> noticed that when gparted finished and I rebooted the machine there is |
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> a blank unallocated space in front of the Windows 7 partition, shown |
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> below as 6.33MB: |
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> |
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> =================================================== |
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> cfdisk (util-linux-ng 2.16.1) |
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> |
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> Disk Drive: /dev/sda |
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> Size: 500107862016 bytes, 500.1 GB |
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> Heads: 255 Sectors per Track: 63 Cylinders: 60801 |
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> |
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> Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB) |
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> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
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> sda1 Primary Dell Utility 41.13 |
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> sda2 Boot Primary NTFS [] 15728.64* |
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> Pri/Log Free Space 6.33* |
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> sda3 Primary NTFS [] 52426.47* |
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> Pri/Log Free Space 431902.70* |
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> |
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> =================================================== |
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> |
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> Also, when I used gparted to create a new extended partition over the |
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> 431G free space at the end of the disk I ended up with a similar small |
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> unallocated space in front of it. This is something I have observed |
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> happening recently on 3 laptops that I have worked on, i.e. resizing |
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> or creating a new partition inevitably creates a small blank partition |
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> in front of it. |
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> |
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> Looking at the sectors table I see this: |
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> =================================================== |
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> Partition Table for /dev/sda |
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> |
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> First Last |
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> # Type Sector Sector Offset Length Filesystem Type (ID) Flag |
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> -- ------- ----------- ----------- ------ ----------- -------------------- ---- |
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> 1 Primary 0 80324 63 80325 Dell Utility (DE) None |
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> 2 Primary 80325 30800324* 0 30720000*HPFS/NTFS (07) Boot |
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> Pri/Log 30800325* 30812669 0 12345*Free Space None |
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> 3 Primary 30812670 133208104* 0 102395435*HPFS/NTFS (07) None |
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> Pri/Log 133208105* 976768064 0 843559960*Free Space None |
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> =================================================== |
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> |
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> I am not sure what the asterisks are for after the last sector on the |
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> second and third partitions. |
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> |
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> Could this empty space jump be related to gparted somehow shifting the |
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> start of a partition to make it align with a particular sector as per |
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> previous thread on the 4k sector topic? |
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> |
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> Should I do anything about it, or just run with it and let gparted |
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> align what it wants to align as part of the partitioning process? |
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> -- |
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> Regards, |
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> Mick |
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> |