how not to initialize HD

[JB]

Paul Cartwright <fedora <at> pcartwright.com> writes:

> ...
Hi,
what a nice and educational set of outputs.

I think some final thoughts are justified.
Anybody who tries to diminish the value of cfdisk, also in diagnosing problems
(by ignoring its warning/error messages), is misleading.

$ man fdisk               # note the source
...
       There are several *fdisk programs around.  Each has  its  problems  and
       strengths.   Try  them  in  the  order cfdisk, fdisk, sfdisk.  (Indeed,
       cfdisk is a beautiful program that has strict requirements on the  par-
       tition  tables  it accepts, and produces high quality partition tables.
       Use it if you can.
...

Example.
Before:
>> # cfdisk -Ps 
>> FATAL ERROR: Bad primary partition <number>: Partition ends in the final
>>  partial cylinder

>> # fdisk -l
>> ...
>> /dev/sda7           11919       12162     1951744   82  Linux swap /
>> Solaris /dev/sda8            8095       11918    30716248+   c  W95 FAT32
>> (LBA)

After (anaconda delivered a working/error free disk):
> # cfdisk -Ps
> Partition Table for /dev/sda
> ...

Also note the following in 'cfdisk -Ps' output:
- entries are in disk order (as opposed to 'fdisk -l')
- it shows Unusable (damaged space)
- it shows Free Space
OK.

There is something else in Paul's post us ...
# fdisk -l
...
> Disk /dev/sdb: 2055 MB, 2055019520 bytes
> 64 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1011 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 3968 * 512 = 2031616 bytes
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
> Disk identifier: 0xb0bcd68e

>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sdb1               1        1011     2005793    b  W95 FAT32

What is it ?
JB