Partition does not start on physical sector boundary

[PiElle]

fdisk -l:

Disk /dev/sda: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes
255 testine, 63 settori/tracce, 91201 cilindri, totale 1465149168 settori
Unità = settori di 1 * 512 = 512 byte
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Identificativo disco: 0xfda956a6

Dispositivo Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 31459327 15728640 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sda2 31459328 31664127 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 31664128 543735989 256035931 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4 543735990 1465147391 460705701 5 Esteso
Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda5 543736053 552957299 4610623+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Partition 5 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda6 862545920 1465147391 301300736 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda7 552957363 604365299 25703968+ 83 Linux
Partition 7 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda8 604365363 645282854 20458746 83 Linux
Partition 8 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda9 645285888 646309887 512000 83 Linux
/dev/sda10 646311936 748711935 51200000 83 Linux
/dev/sda11 748713984 851113983 51200000 83 Linux
/dev/sda12 851116032 862543871 5713920 82 Linux swap / Solaris

I've tried other installations, but I always get errors like this.
/dev/sda 5, 7 and 8 are occupied by PCLinuxOs.
/dev/sda 9, 10, 11 and 12 by Fedora.
I made room for Linux installations by GParted (last version).
Really, I made no errors.
The installer of PCLOS is a bit strange: it changed the NTFS partition sda5 in sda 6!
In a previous installation with Fedora and Kubuntu only the extend partition sda 4 complained about not starting on physical sector boundary.
The hard disk is Western Digital with Advanced Format. Probably this is the cause of the problem.
The systems are snappy and responsive. I do not encounter any problem.
What to do? Ignoring the problem or reinstalling?
May be it would be better to get rid of PCLOS and to dual boot Windows with Fedora?

[msachikanta]

Are you trying to make dual boot of your machine..? if yes you need to have extended partition for Linux Image. when you are creating separate partition for Linux Image don't format the created partition.. just keep it as extended file system. and try to install fedora on that partition..

Please do let us know if you are facing any issue so that we can help you out...

Thank you...

[Gareth Jones]

Advanced format means that the physical sectors on the disc are larger than the tradition 512 bytes, typically 4 KiB, 8 times larger. If the disc was formatted with tools assuming 512 B sectors, that could cause these messages. I'm assuming that the "Blocks" column is measured in 512 B units, and I note that the start addresses of the problem partitions are not divisible by 8.

If the system works well, you don't need to worry about it. Properly aligned partitions will be very slightly more optimal, but that's something you can forget about until next time you have a real reason for repartitioning the disc.

Gareth

[PiElle]

Advanced format means that the physical sectors on the disc are larger than the tradition 512 bytes, typically 4 KiB, 8 times larger. If the disc was formatted with tools assuming 512 B sectors, that could cause these messages. I'm assuming that the "Blocks" column is measured in 512 B units, and I note that the start addresses of the problem partitions are not divisible by 8.

If the system works well, you don't need to worry about it. Properly aligned partitions will be very slightly more optimal, but that's something you can forget about until next time you have a real reason for repartitioning the disc.

Gareth

I think so, because both the systems run really well (quick and responsive)!
Obviously all the Linux partitions are inside the extended partition (sda4).
I created the extended partition with GParted: no problems of alignment.
Then I installed the Operative Systems running their own installers (hence fdisk's complaints).
I have another notebook dual booting Windows 7 and Fedora 15 without getting strange messages from fdisk (the hard disk is different, anyway).
In the past I made several installation without problems ...

[Luke M]

Random write performance will be poor (3x slower) on the non-aligned partitions. But it will work.

[PiElle]

I think everything is O. K. now:

Disk /dev/sda: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes
255 testine, 63 settori/tracce, 91201 cilindri, totale 1465149168 settori
Unità = settori di 1 * 512 = 512 byte
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Identificativo disco: 0xfda956a6

Dispositivo Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 31459327 15728640 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sda2 31459328 31664127 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 31664128 543735989 256035931 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4 543737856 1465147391 460704768 5 Esteso
/dev/sda5 860702720 1465147391 302222336 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda6 543739904 552955903 4608000 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 552957952 604157951 25600000 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 604160000 650239999 23040000 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 650242048 651266047 512000 83 Linux
/dev/sda10 651268096 763908095 56320000 83 Linux
/dev/sda11 763910144 850456575 43273216 83 Linux
/dev/sda12 850458624 860696575 5118976 82 Linux swap / Solaris

I deleted all the Linux partitions
I downloaded the last version of Gparted (before I was using that one that ships with Ubuntu 11.04 which is much older!).
I made the 3 the partitions for PCLOS with Gparted (in this respect the installer of PCLOS is a bit odd: maybe it does not support advanced format).
I then installed Fedora 15 (sda9 - 10 - 11 - 12), making its partitions with Anaconda without problems ... .
So I can mark the thread as solved!