Re: Severe fdisk problem leading to data loss?

[Phillip Susi <psusi@ubuntu.com>]

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On 11/27/2013 3:07 PM, Karel Zak wrote:
> Seriously, maybe it's fine to ignore the partition with the zero
> type by kernel, but I don't think it's good way for fdisk-like
> applications.
> 
> IMHO it's better to force users to delete the partition than rely
> on the flag. See this thread, user lost data because somehow set
> the type to zero and fdisk reused the space.

Only because fdisk let them set it to zero in the first place ;)

> From my point of view all partitions with non-zero size should be 
> visible by fdisk (or parted) independently on flags or types.

I don't like the idea of showing a different view of the partition
table than DOS/Windows; that way lies suffering.  I can maybe see
complaining that the entry is invalid and letting you change the type
to correct the problem ( assuming the start and length don't put it
outside the disk or overlapping other partitions ), but it should be
very clear that this is a broken entry.

> I'll probably add a warning to fdisk to inform users about the zero
>  type problem.

It already does warn you when you set the type to 0.

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