Problem partitioning dual-boot

[Holger Parplies]

Hi,

I can't really help you with your issue, but a few things do strike me as
strange:

John G. Heim wrote on 2011-09-19 17:11:38 -0500 [Re: Problem partitioning dual-boot]:
> [...]
> One thing that I've noticed... Sda1 ends on block 5100 and sba2 also begins 
> on 5100. That can't be right, can it?
> [...]
>   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sda1   *           1        5100    40960000    7  HPFS/NTFS

For all I can figure out, your Windoze partition does not seem to end on a
cylinder boundary (though in my experience, fdisk tends to print a warning if
this is the case). I could imagine this could lead to a second partition being
created starting on the same cylinder. Whether or not this would confuse
Windoze 7, I couldn't begin to guess. Note, though, that this already seemed
to be the case before the FAI installation:

> ==========
> Fdisk before FAI install
> ==========
> Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160000000000 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19452 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
> Disk identifier: 0xc19e4136
> 
>   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sda1   *           1        5100    40960000    7  HPFS/NTFS
> /dev/sda2            5100       19452   115287040    7  HPFS/NTFS

At this point, you seem to have 2 NTFS partitions, of which your FAI
installation deletes the second (but then, the manual Debian installation
probably does, too).

> My disk_config file:
> disk_config disk1 preserve_always:1 bootable:1
> primary  /windows          0-  ntfs  rw
> logical swap  1500M   swap  rw
> logical /     30G-     ext3  rw         createopts="-m 5" tuneopts="-c 0 -i 
> 0"

Not problem-related, but out of curiosity: why do you use logical partitions
instead of primary, even though you don't need more than 4 partitions in
total?


I hope someone else has more insight into what might be causing your problem.

Regards,
Holger

P.S.: I was first wondering about the disk size being slightly larger than
      what the disk geometry indicates, but I've found this to be the case
      on any disk I can currently run 'fdisk' on. Does anyone know why this
      is so?