GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 705595
Partition 1 isn't aligned to cylinder boundaries. This is still unsupported.--by who?
Last modified: 2013-08-20 18:35:28 UTC
The message Partition 1 isn't aligned to cylinder boundaries. This is still unsupported. should add two words: by Linux. or by Gparted. else it isn't clear to the user.
Where did you encounter this message? Can you provide a log file or screen shot?
Yes, in this case gparted can hardly be used. Same Partition 1 error in GUI and stderr: # gparted /dev/sde ====================== libparted : 2.3 ====================== Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/25-wqy-zenhei.conf", line 11: Having multiple values in <test> isn't supported and may not work as expected Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/41-arphic-uming.conf", line 16: Having multiple <family> in <alias> isn't supported a Partition 1 isn't aligned to cylinder boundaries. This is still unsupported. ~# gfdisk -l /dev/sde GNU Fdisk 1.2.5 Copyright (C) 1998 - 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This program is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. No Implementation: Partition 1 isn't aligned to cylinder boundaries. This is still unsupported. # fdisk.distrib -l /dev/sde Disk /dev/sde: 4075 MB, 4075290624 bytes 4 heads, 16 sectors/track, 124368 cylinders, total 7959552 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sde1 16 15679 7832 4 FAT16 <32M /dev/sde2 15680 7959551 3971936 83 Linux ~# disktype /dev/sde --- /dev/sde Block device, size 3.795 GiB (4075290624 bytes) DOS/MBR partition map Partition 1: 7.648 MiB (8019968 bytes, 15664 sectors from 16) Type 0x04 (FAT16 <32M) FAT12 file system (hints score 5 of 5) Volume size 7.619 MiB (7989248 bytes, 3901 clusters of 2 KiB) Volume name "" Partition 2: 3.788 GiB (4067262464 bytes, 7943872 sectors from 15680) Type 0x83 (Linux) Ext3 file system UUID C914C362-4B46-48BE-AFAF-6E061825B2ED (DCE, v4) Volume size 3.788 GiB (4067262464 bytes, 992984 blocks of 4 KiB) Package: gparted Version: 0.16.1-1 -- System Information: Debian Release: jessie/sid APT prefers experimental APT policy: (990, 'experimental'), (500, 'unstable') Architecture: i386 (i686) Kernel: Linux 3.9-1-486 Locale: LANG=zh_TW.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=zh_TW.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Versions of packages gparted depends on: ii libatkmm-1.6-1 2.22.7-2 ii libc6 2.17-92 ii libgcc1 1:4.8.1-8 ii libglib2.0-0 2.37.5-1 ii libglibmm-2.4-1c2a 2.36.2-1 ii libgtk2.0-0 2.24.20-1 ii libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a 1:2.24.4-1 ii libpangomm-1.4-1 2.34.0-1 ii libparted0debian1 2.3-13 ii libsigc++-2.0-0c2a 2.2.10-0.2 ii libstdc++6 4.8.1-8 ii libuuid1 2.20.1-5.5 gparted recommends no packages. Versions of packages gparted suggests: pn dmraid <none> ii dmsetup 2:1.02.77-4 ii dosfstools 3.0.22-1 pn gpart <none> pn jfsutils <none> pn kpartx <none> pn ntfsprogs <none> pn reiser4progs <none> pn reiserfsprogs <none> pn xfsprogs <none> ii yelp 3.8.1-2 -- no debconf information
Would you be able to provide the output from the following two commands? fdisk -l -u /path-to-your-disk-device where one of the options is a lower case "L" and not the number one, and /path-to-your-device is something like /dev/sde parted /path-to-your-device unit s print
# fdisk -l -u /dev/sdf GNU Fdisk 1.2.5 Copyright (C) 1998 - 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This program is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. No Implementation: Partition 1 isn't aligned to cylinder boundaries. This is still unsupported. # fdisk.distrib -l -u=cylinders /dev/sdf Disk /dev/sdf: 4075 MB, 4075290624 bytes 4 heads, 16 sectors/track, 124368 cylinders Units = cylinders of 64 * 512 = 32768 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdf1 1 245 7832 4 FAT16 <32M /dev/sdf2 246 124368 3971936 83 Linux # fdisk.distrib -l -u /dev/sdf Disk /dev/sdf: 4075 MB, 4075290624 bytes 4 heads, 16 sectors/track, 124368 cylinders, total 7959552 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdf1 16 15679 7832 4 FAT16 <32M /dev/sdf2 15680 7959551 3971936 83 Linux # parted /dev/sdf unit s print No Implementation: Partition 1 isn't aligned to cylinder boundaries. This is still unsupported.
Look at what I discovered today: # { perl /tmp/g.pl; echo;}|while read x; do echo ====== $x ====== ; echo $x|xargs fdisk -l|wc -l; done ====== /dev/sda /dev/sdb /dev/sde ====== 33 ====== /dev/sda /dev/sde /dev/sdb ====== 33 ====== /dev/sdb /dev/sda /dev/sde ====== 18 ====== /dev/sdb /dev/sde /dev/sda ====== 18 ====== /dev/sde /dev/sda /dev/sdb ====== 10 ====== /dev/sde /dev/sdb /dev/sda ====== 10 ====== ====== Warning: Partition 5 does not end on cylinder boundary. Warning: Partition 6 does not end on cylinder boundary. Warning: Partition 7 does not end on cylinder boundary. Warning: Partition 8 does not end on cylinder boundary. Warning: Partition 9 does not end on cylinder boundary. Warning: Partition 10 does not end on cylinder boundary. Warning: Partition 11 does not end on cylinder boundary. Warning: Partition 12 does not end on cylinder boundary. Warning: Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary. No Implementation: Partition 1 isn't aligned to cylinder boundaries. This is still unsupported. 24 1. The above shows that spurious Warning: Partition 11 does not end on cylinder boundary. are emitted if one uses -l with no arguments! 2. Regarding the "No Implementation" message, when it appears, it causes the program to die, and A. sometimes isn't printed. B. sometimes is printed to STDOUT, and C. sometimes is printed to STDERR. Yes, not randomly, but depending on which 'troublesome' disk it encounters first. { perl /tmp/g.pl; echo;}|while read x; do echo ====== $x ====== ; echo $x|xargs fdisk -l 2>&1|grep Implementation; done ====== /dev/sda /dev/sdb /dev/sde ====== ====== /dev/sda /dev/sde /dev/sdb ====== ====== /dev/sdb /dev/sda /dev/sde ====== ====== /dev/sdb /dev/sde /dev/sda ====== ====== /dev/sde /dev/sda /dev/sdb ====== No Implementation: Partition 1 isn't aligned to cylinder boundaries. This is still unsupported. ====== /dev/sde /dev/sdb /dev/sda ====== No Implementation: Partition 1 isn't aligned to cylinder boundaries. This is still unsupported. ====== ====== No Implementation: Partition 1 isn't aligned to cylinder boundaries. This is still unsupported. # { perl /tmp/g.pl; echo;}|while read x; do echo ====== $x ====== ; echo $x|xargs fdisk -l 2>/dev/null|grep Implementation; done ====== /dev/sda /dev/sdb /dev/sde ====== ====== /dev/sda /dev/sde /dev/sdb ====== ====== /dev/sdb /dev/sda /dev/sde ====== ====== /dev/sdb /dev/sde /dev/sda ====== ====== /dev/sde /dev/sda /dev/sdb ====== No Implementation: Partition 1 isn't aligned to cylinder boundaries. This is still unsupported. ====== /dev/sde /dev/sdb /dev/sda ====== No Implementation: Partition 1 isn't aligned to cylinder boundaries. This is still unsupported. ====== ====== Also before emitting the fatal message, these should mention what disk they are talking about! They just die and make the user think the blame lies with the previous disk. At least they should die with /dev/sdX: No Implementation: Partition 1 isn't aligned to cylinder boundaries. This is still unsupported. $ cat /tmp/g.pl use strict; use Algorithm::Loops qw(NextPermute); my @list = ( glob "/dev/sd[abe]" ); do { print "@list\n"; } while ( NextPermute(@list) );
Oops my "1. The above shows that spurious Warning: Partition 11 does not end on cylinder boundary. are emitted if one uses -l with no arguments!" is wrong. Using no arguments to -l just causes it to go to STDERR instead of STDIN.
From comment #4, it appears that your setup is using GNU fdisk, and not the standard fdisk bundled with util-linux. GNU fdisk also uses the libparted library from the parted project (similar to GParted). As such all of these tools should show the same message (and indeed do). What GNU/Linux distribution are you using? Also, a newer version of parted is available (3.1). Can you test with parted 3.1 to see if the problem persists? If the problem still exists with parted 3.1 then you might consider raising the issue with the parted project.
OK I filed http://bugs.debian.org/719275 (parted is dreadfully out of date. Please put up a new version.) as I spent an hour downloading its dependencies before I gave up and will wait for an official .deb.
I think this is a limitation in libparted's fat handling code. Since this comes from libparted, this should be closed as NOTGNOME.
Also this appears to be a limitation of the pc98 partition table format, so just don't use that format.
Thank you Jidanni and Phillip for commenting on this report. Since the problem is not within the control of GParted, I will close this report as NOTGNOME.
1. Throwing bugs away and forwarding them upstream will not improve the product. The submitter might have died and an important bug will be lost. 2. These are just standard thumb drives. Real Fdisk can deal with them fine. 3. Debian is not updating from version 2 to version 3 of the library. So I cannot test. http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=720214
Jidanni, What do you expect to be done with this report? I see three problems with keeping this report open: A) The problem appears to be in the libparted library, and not under control of the GParted project. B) In comment #8 you indicated that have given up in trying the latest parted code. This testing could indicate if the problem has already been resolved in the latest parted code. C) Keeping reports open in a project in which the project does not have control of the code usually serves to draw time away from actual development when the report is revisited at later points in time. Each time the report is reviewed, the conclusion remains the same that the problem is outside the control of the GParted project. Curtis
Yes, I cannot proceed because Debian, who relies on the parted stuff, won't update to the newest version so I can test their Debian version. So I will just forget about the parted family of partition stuff and go back to using cfdisk etc. OK, sorry for wasting everybody's time. Bye.
I appreciate that you have volunteered your time to report a problem while using GParted. Reports of problems help us to improve GParted. Thank you for reporting this problem. GParted calls on libraries and programs from many projects. In situations where we do not control the code in question, we try to point out where to go to raise the issue. In this case we believe the problem lies with libparted, which is managed under the Parted project. For further resolution, we suggest you follow up with the Parted project.