Quote: Originally Posted by 119baystate
Quote: Originally Posted by TVeblen
Partition Wizard will not create these unallocated spaces because Linux does not have a use for them.


Wait a minute, are you saying that WINDOWS created the unallocated spaces in an autonomous operation subsequent the PARTITION WIZARD splitting the drive into separate partitions?


TVeblen got me motivated to run another test to see if this is WINDOWS or PARTITION WIZARD creating these unallocated spaces. Most of the conversation has pointed towards WINDOWS, but I did the following:

1) booted from a MACRIUM rescue disk which I believe does not care what operating system it is attempting to recover;

2) with a USB flash drive with PARTITION WIZARD installed I deleted the boot disk;

3) the size of the disk with no partitions according to PARTITION WIZARD is 238417.78 MBYTES which is 249,894,304,481.25 ....... bytes;

4) I then created 1 single primary partition on that very disk;

5) the size of that partition according to PARTITION WIZARD is 238416 MBYTES which is 249,892,438,016 .......... bytes;

NOTE the difference in size. The first is not an integer multiple of 512 bytes which if I am correct is a block size for NTFS? The 2nd size is an integer multiple. The residual 1.78 Mb. What did PARTITION WIZARD do with that residual space?

Keep in mind I am not booted into WINDOWS unless the MACRIUM rescue disk is based off a WINDOWS OS; moreover, I am creating a single primary partition. PARTITION WIZARD created 2 unallocated spaces. The 1 preceding the primary partition is 1.00Mb & the 1 following is 0.78Mb. The 1Mb space is an integer multiples of 512 bytes while the 2nd one is not.

So I am more asking a question than making a statement. This does not appear to be a WINDOWS artifact? The 1Mb preceding the primary partition is what, part of an extended boot record? The 0.78 Mb space is simply left over & no system whether WINDOWS, LINUX, APPLE, or UNIX can use since it is less than a block size?

I also did the same experiment by creating a single logical partition & the results were the same. Try it yourself. It is a quick test & you can finish in 5 minutes depending how fast your system will boot off a CD.