Arch Linux

Mr. Alex

Member

Registered: 2010-08-26

Posts: 623

Unallocated area after installation

Why do I get this unallocated area after installation of Arch Linux?

I made partitions with Arch installer.

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: Unallocated area after installation

I don't know, but it's just 2,5 MB so need to worry.

skunktrader

Member

From: Brisbane, Australia

Registered: 2010-02-14

Posts: 1,543

Re: Unallocated area after installation

Probably the created partitions are not an exact multiple of the cluster size

llawwehttam

Member

From: United Kingdom

Registered: 2010-01-19

Posts: 181

Re: Unallocated area after installation

I wouldn't worry about it.

I have seen various partitioner's do similar things.

If I remember correctly windows xp's partitioner used to leave 8mb or so disk space unallocated.

If you are desperate to recover it you could always boot a gparted cd and extend the swap into it.

Last edited by llawwehttam (2010-09-03 19:13:58)

Mr. Alex

Member

Registered: 2010-08-26

Posts: 623

Re: Unallocated area after installation

Well, it's not that I worry about it, I'm just curious - what's the reason? I had the same thing when installing Ubuntu, I thought it was Ubuntu's bug. And I was surprised to see it in Arch...

djgera

Developer

From: Buenos Aires - Argentina

Registered: 2008-12-24

Posts: 723

Website

Re: Unallocated area after installation

Unused data is for align correctly partitions.

If you are curious, that is good, you can play with empty and sparse files example here is ~1M of wasted space, this unused space is between MBR and first partition, adding more partitions depending on size, will waste more fews MBs.

[djgera@gerardo ~]$ dd if=/dev/zero of=pepito seek=1T count=0 bs=1
0+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes (0 B) copied, 8.16e-06 s, 0.0 kB/s
[djgera@gerardo ~]$ fdisk pepe 
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel
Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x01ac2009.
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
After that, of course, the previous content won't be recoverable.

Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

Command (m for help): n
Command action
   e   extended
   p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4, default 1): 
Using default value 1
First sector (2048-2147483647, default 2048): 
Using default value 2048
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (2048-2147483647, default 2147483647): 
Using default value 2147483647

Command (m for help): p

Disk pepe: 1099.5 GB, 1099511627776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 133674 cylinders, total 2147483648 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: 0x01ac2009

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
 pepe1            2048  2147483647  1073740800   83  Linux

Command (m for help): v
Remaining 2047 unallocated 512-byte sectors

Command (m for help): q

Another random example:

Command (m for help): p

Disk pepe: 1099.5 GB, 1099511627776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 133674 cylinders, total 2147483648 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: 0x8b9ebf4e

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
 pepe1            2048      206847      102400   83  Linux
 pepe2          206848    21178367    10485760   83  Linux
 pepe3        21178368  2147483647  1063152640    5  Extended
 pepe5        21180416   230895615   104857600   83  Linux
 pepe6       230897664   230918143       10240   83  Linux
 pepe7       230920192  2147483647   958281728   83  Linux

Command (m for help): v
Remaining 8188 unallocated 512-byte sectors

about 4M here.

Last edited by djgera (2010-09-03 19:44:45)