Ubuntu
gnome-system-tools package

partition does not end on cyl boundary -> disks-admin reports fake empty space

Bug #67529 reported by Patrick Hendrickx
2
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
gnome-system-tools (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: gnome-system-tools

I installed Ubuntu 6.06 LTS on a disk where the partitions are not aligned with cylinder boundaries. The disks-admin tool does not handle this situation correctly: it reports 4096 GB (!) empty space in between partitions.

See original description
Patrick Hendrickx (patrick-hendrickx1)
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Patrick Hendrickx (patrick-hendrickx1) wrote :

Version information and result of fdisk -l are as follows:

# uname -r
2.6.15-27-386

# disks-admin --version
Gnome disks-admin 2.14.0

# /usr/share/setup-tool-backends/scripts/disks-conf --version
disks 1.4.2

# fdisk -v
fdisk v2.12r

# fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 61.4 GB, 61492838400 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 119150 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 48442 24414736+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 48451 50522 1044225 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hda3 50522 111467 30716280 83 Linux
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hda4 111467 119149 3871665 b W95 FAT32
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Attached is a screenshot of how disks-admin handles the situation. Note that the first empty space reported is correct, the other two are bogus.

Revision history for this message
Patrick Hendrickx (patrick-hendrickx1) wrote :

Digged deeper into this and found the following:

/usr/share/setup-tool-backends/scripts/partition.pl scans for empty space by comparing the start of a partition with the end of the previous partition. If these are not on subsequent cylinders, the script assumes empty space.

If a partition starts on the same cylinder as its predecessor, the code on line 578 and following assumes an empty space of -1 cylinders. I can see the corresponding size of -504 KB in the XML file that is returned to the GUI frontend.

The 4096 GB is probably caused by a signed/unsigned conversion in the GUI frontend, although I did not check that.

Changed the test in partition.pl to handle the case of a new partition starting on the same cylinder as its predecessor. All works well now. Patch is attached.

Revision history for this message
Wouter Stomp (wouterstomp-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

Marking as invalid, as disks-admin was removed from gnome-system-tools in ubuntu a long time ago.

Changed in gnome-system-tools:
status: New → Invalid
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