From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: util-linux-owner@vger.kernel.org Received: from out1-smtp.messagingengine.com ([66.111.4.25]:56303 "EHLO out1-smtp.messagingengine.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753652Ab2IYUdJ (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Sep 2012 16:33:09 -0400 Received: from compute5.internal (compute5.nyi.mail.srv.osa [10.202.2.45]) by gateway1.nyi.mail.srv.osa (Postfix) with ESMTP id 088D2201DE for ; Tue, 25 Sep 2012 16:33:09 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <1348605188.19630.140661132636721.0CD0D5D4@webmail.messagingengine.com> From: Francesco Turco To: util-linux@vger.kernel.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Subject: Why fdisk wants the first partition to start at 1 MiB? Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 22:33:08 +0200 Sender: util-linux-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Hello. I'm trying to use fdisk (from util-linux 2.19.1) for creating a partition on a drive. I noticed that the start sector of the first partition must be at least 2048, that is 1 MiB from the beginning of the drive. This can be changed by entering the "expert mode" and using the "move beginning of data in a partition" option. But I'm still wondering why fdisk reserves so much space by default. As far as I know the only sector that should not be used for partitions is the first one, that is, sector 0. It is reserved for the MBR. So the first partition can start at sector 1. I read that the 1 MiB thing is Windows related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_Disk_Manager. Or it's something that Linux users should also care about? I can't find a convincing explanation anywhere. This 1 MiB thing seems to affect parted, too, as it wants partition boundaries to be multiples of 1 MiB. I don't know if it's related to the problem I have with fdisk, though. Any help is much appreciated.