Cfdisk error: Partition ends in the final partial cylinder

Question

I was rearraging some partitions last night.  I have two hard drives, both 1TB.  They are (now) laid out as follows:
Drive 1:
- 40GB partition for Windows system
- 40GB partition for Arch system
- 920GB partition for backed up documents
Drive 2:
- 80GB utility partition
- 920GB partition for documents
I used fdisk to create the last partition on the first drive (the first two partitions were already in place).  I pretty much just told it to create a 'n'ew, 'p'rimary partition and then accepted the default options in order to get a partition that filled the remainder of the drive.  None of the partitions were in place on the second drive, and I tried using fdisk, but when I tried to create the first partition, it wouldn't allow me to start it at the beginning of the drive (it insisted on making the first partition start at sector 2048 rather than sector 63).  I figured I'd try out cfdisk to see if it would allow me to start the partition on sector 63, and it did.  Got those partitions created just fine using cfdisk.
However, I went back to check my work after I had created all the partitions and hit a source of confusion.  cfdisk spouts out an error whenever I try to view the first drive.  It says partition number 2 is bad and that the "Partition ends in the final partial cylinder".  (Not sure if partition number 2 refers to the second or third partition.  (Is the index zero-based?))  cfdisk has no trouble viewing my second drive, and fdisk has no problem viewing either of them.  I'm a bit of a newbie with regards this sort of thing, so any idea why cfdisk has issues with my first drive?
The drives' layouts, as reported by fdisk:
Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000203804160 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953523055 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: 0xea8fea8f
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 78124094 39062016 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 78124095 156248189 39062047+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 156248190 1953523054 898637432+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 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: 0xead3ead3
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 63 156248189 78124063+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2 156248190 1953520064 898635937+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
Last edited by nonoitall (2010-07-07 21:25:42)

Answer 1

plasticeraser wrote:I would like to replace Ubuntu with Arch, unfortunately when I tried earlier I received, a cfdisk error that said "cfdisk error: Partition ends in the final partial cylinder". So I can't just delete the Ubuntu Partitions.
So you /do/ want to remove Ubuntu completely.
plasticeraser wrote:Since I'm at college I really don't want to format anything and possibly losing anything.
Maybe I'm not following, but it looks like you want to format (delete) your Ubuntu partitions, but then again you don't want to format anything. You can't just install Arch on top of your Ubuntu partitions and think it will just overwrite Ubuntu by putting Arch in the existing partitions. That'll just create a huge mess.
If your existing /home is on a separate partition, you can just use fdisk (instead of cfdisk) to delete Ubuntu's / partition so that Arch can use that instead. You should just use an installation medium to do the install process, it really is just a matter or removing your existing distro's / and telling Arch to install to that partition while still preserving your Windows 7 partition(s) and existing /home.