Bug#489072: Partition table damaged
Package: debian-installer
Version: 20070308etch2
I did a Debian install on a machine that already had XP installed, grub
gave Error 18, I replaced this with an LBA MBR and Lilo in the partition
boot sector and got "L 99" after adding "ignore-table". I removed and
reinstalled the debian partitions and the install succeeded on the second
try. I was unable to repeat the failure, however, I suspect part of the
cause was the very ugly partition table (which did repeat):
Script started on Thu 03 Jul 2008 00:21:29 BST
debian:~# sfdisk -l /dev/hda
Disk /dev/hda: 77520 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors/track
Warning: extended partition does not start at a cylinder boundary.
DOS and Linux will interpret the contents differently.
Units = cylinders of 516096 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0
Device Boot Start End #cyls #blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 0+ 15884 15885- 8006008+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
end: (c,h,s) expected (1023,15,63) found (1023,239,63)
/dev/hda2 * 15889+ 74890- 59001- 29736315 83 Linux
start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,15,63) found (997,0,1)
end: (c,h,s) expected (1023,15,63) found (1023,254,63)
/dev/hda3 74890+ 77519 2630- 1325362+ 5 Extended
start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,15,63) found (1023,254,63)
end: (c,h,s) expected (1023,15,63) found (1023,254,63)
/dev/hda4 0 - 0 0 0 Empty
/dev/hda5 74890+ 77519 2630- 1325331 82 Linux swap / Solaris
start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,15,63) found (1023,254,63)
end: (c,h,s) expected (1023,15,63) found (1023,254,63)
debian:~# sfdisk -d /dev/hda
Warning: extended partition does not start at a cylinder boundary.
DOS and Linux will interpret the contents differently.
# partition table of /dev/hda
unit: sectors
/dev/hda1 : start= 63, size= 16012017, Id= 7
/dev/hda2 : start= 16016805, size= 59472630, Id=83, bootable
/dev/hda3 : start= 75489435, size= 2650725, Id= 5
/dev/hda4 : start= 0, size= 0, Id= 0
/dev/hda5 : start= 75489498, size= 2650662, Id=82
debian:~#
Script done on Thu 03 Jul 2008 00:23:55 BST
There are three CHS values here:
BIOS invention: 1024:240:63
Kernel invention: 1024:16:63
Fdisk invention: 1024:255:63
I would expect only the CHS invented by the BIOS is of any interest to
anyone. The fact that the fdisk tool you used has seen fit to invent a
layout is definitly a bug, however, is probably triggered by the kernel's
randomness. Note, before debian-installer messed with it the partition
table was identified correctly as being created under a BIOS 1024:240:63
layout by both "fdisk" and "sfdisk". (I used fdisk to resize the windows
partition)
On install I chose "Guided install on empty disk space" (slightly
paraphrased) and "everything in one partition". The only other
non-"henpeck" option was use of UK English (it detected a laptop
install)
--
Rob. (Robert de Bath <robert$ @ debath.co.uk>)
<http://www.debath.co.uk/>
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