Partitioning problem

[Colin Watson]

On Sat, Dec 07, 2013 at 11:45:25AM -0800, Bob wrote:
> Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
> Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
> Disk identifier: 0xdf5ee111
> 
>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sda1   *          63       16064        8001    a  OS/2 Boot Manager
> Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
> /dev/sda4           16065   703309823   351646879+   5  Extended
> Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary.
> /dev/sda5           16128    10265534     5124703+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
> /dev/sda6        10265598    30748409    10241406    b  W95 FAT32
> Partition 6 does not start on physical sector boundary.
> /dev/sda7       781461504   976771071    97654784   83  Linux
> /dev/sda8       703324160   781449215    39062528   82  Linux swap / Solaris
> /dev/sda9       625184768   703309823    39062528   83  Linux
> 
> The Ubuntu partitions are listed backwards.

There's actually nothing that says partitions have to be in numerical
order on the disk, and it often works out to be actively a good idea for
them not to be - better to insert partitions out of order than to change
an existing partition's number.

> Why would any program change the end of the extended partition end unless you
> were purposely changing the size of the extended partition?

The extended partition has little real meaning beyond being a container
for logical partitions.  It'd be user-hostile to require people to
manually resize the extended partition in order to insert more logical
partitions, so partman manages the extended partition's bounds
implicitly.

That said, of course you're correct that the extended partition should
cover all the logical partitions; something >= 976771071 is the correct
endpoint here.  Could you attach /var/log/installer/partman so I can see
what the installer thought it was doing?

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]