Unallocated spaces at the beginning & end of the BOOT disk

[119baystate]

I am spinning off a new thread from 1 in the HARDWARE & DEVICES forum to get some other perspective. The discussion there has seemed to stalled out on what is the issue in my situation. The link to that discussion:
Partition question : Unallocated Space Before

My situation:
I recently shrunk my system partition to create another partition to make a CLEAN INSTALL system on the new partition. I noticed afterward that I have 1Mb UNALLOCATED space both at the beginning & end of that hard drive. Does your explanation above account for this? I cannot seem to get rid of those 2 spaces.

What I am currently doing:
I deleted the drive in question & did a fresh install on the drive. The unallocated spaces persist. Now I am wiping the drive & will do a fresh install again & check the matter again.

Will report back on the progress.

Anyone else stumble on to this problem?

 

[AddRAM]

Did you delete the entire drive down to un allocated space before this new install ?

 

[LMiller7]

Why the concern over this totally inconsequential amount of disk space? Why is this considered a problem at all?

 

[SIW2]

It is supposed to be like that. Normal partition alignment for Vista and newer.

 

[119baystate]

Did you delete the entire drive down to un allocated space before this new install ?

I (THINK) that I did. The new install just finished. Now there is no unallocated space. I will now repartition the drive & restore the old image & recheck.

CHECK MYSELF above: I will restore the old image & recheck. If OK then repartition.

 

[119baystate]

Why the concern over this totally inconsequential amount of disk space? Why is this considered a problem at all?

With VERY GREAT concern. Inexplicable incidents propagate themselves in future operations. From the perspective of system analyst & reliability engineer you BITE THIS IN THE BUD while you can. Later the cascading effect is likely irrepairable.

As a "7 GURU" I would expect you realize that.

 

[119baystate]

It is supposed to be like that. Normal partition alignment for Vista and newer.

When you say "It is supposed to be like that.", do you mean the unallocated spaces should exist? They did not before to my recollection.

 

[119baystate]

Did you delete the entire drive down to un allocated space before this new install ?

I (THINK) that I did. The new install just finished. Now there is no unallocated space. I will now repartition the drive & restore the old image & recheck.

CHECK MYSELF above: I will restore the old image & recheck. If OK then repartition.

At this juncture I have restored the OLD image & NO unallocated spaces exist. Now I will repartition the disk to make room for the FRESH INSTALL.

The disk has been repartitoned & NO unallocated spaces. The final step is NEXT, will report back.

 

[gregrocker]

Much ado about a megabyte.

 

[119baystate]

Much ado about a megabyte.

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is especially true if those of you that offer advice as frequent as you do cannot explain why. I have no idea if this will BITE me in --- down the road.

 

[gregrocker]

Giga's can gag but Mega's can't byte.

 

[119baystate]

Did you delete the entire drive down to un allocated space before this new install ?

I (THINK) that I did. The new install just finished. Now there is no unallocated space. I will now repartition the drive & restore the old image & recheck.

CHECK MYSELF above: I will restore the old image & recheck. If OK then repartition.

At this juncture I have restored the OLD image & NO unallocated spaces exist. Now I will repartition the disk to make room for the FRESH INSTALL.

The disk has been repartitoned & NO unallocated spaces. The final step is NEXT, will report back.

OK, I did the FRESH INSTALL & the unallocated spaces reappeared. Why is that? I have another dual-boot system & those spaces do not exist. However, the difference there is the 2 OS's exist on different disks. This time they are on 2 partitions on the same drive.

Is this actually supposed to occur per response from SWI2? If so, why? If not, are they problematic?

 

[119baystate]

Giga's can gag but Mega's can't byte.

SNIDE remarks like this are not helpful. You are cluttering the thread. Given yor credentials you post on your handle name you would have more to offer than the above.

 

[gregrocker]

Jeez, I was only trying to be lighthearted and humorous.

Why so serious about a megabyte that you'd insult someone over it? It is as insignificant as a piece of dust.

Unsubscribed from thread and all future by OP.

 

[SIW2]

In Vista and newer, logical drives [ except the one nearest the start of the extended partition ], usually reserve one MiB for an extended boot record, rather than the 63 sectors (31.5 KiB) reserved by alignment based on a CHS geometry. If other partition managers are used then Vista and newer Disk Management may reserve different amounts of space for the EBRs.

Some partition managers will optimise alignment for you.

Download Free AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard - Magic Partition Manager Freeware

 

[Layback Bear]

SIW2 is definitely one of the forums experts on such matters.
So if I may ask a question.

SIW2 after following your advise and instructions will their be a lost or misused 1mb or more?
Because that seem to be 119baystate concern.

I ask this question because I'm not a expert like SIW2 and gregrocker and I have read post #22 to 27 here.

http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware...tion-question-unallocated-space-before-3.html

 

[TVeblen]

FYI:
https://kb.acronis.com/content/1884

 

[119baystate]

In Vista and newer, logical drives [ except the one nearest the start of the extended partition ], usually reserve one MiB for an extended boot record, rather than the 63 sectors (31.5 KiB) reserved by alignment based on a CHS geometry. If other partition managers are used then Vista and newer Disk Management may reserve different amounts of space for the EBRs.

Some partition managers will optimise alignment for you.

Download Free AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard - Magic Partition Manager Freeware

I did some reading on filesystem organization & the MBR along with some partitioning. I will attempt to parse what you are saying into something I understand. Everything I am saying from this point forward are pretty much questions from me.

First off, I thought anything to do with the boot record resides in "SHADOW" partition of which is conservatively oversized by design. So I don't quite understand why additional unallocated space is necessary for that.

The additional unallocated spaces are not an artifact of a DUAL BOOT system, but more of an artifact of how I told PARTITION WIZARD to split the partitions of that single drive? If so that might explain that I do not have these unallocated spaces on my other DUAL BOOT system where the 2 OSes reside on different drives?

I gather there are differences in block or cluster sizes between file systems of which I guess mine is NTFS. If I choose a partition size that is an EXACT integer multiple of that cluster size then these unallocated spaces are not needed?

Am I getting the picture? If you have a good tutorial on the subject by all means clue me in.

Thanks

 

[TVeblen]

First off, I thought anything to do with the boot record resides in "SHADOW" partition of which is conservatively oversized by design. So I don't quite understand why additional unallocated space is necessary for that.

These "shadow" partitions have nothing to do with unallocated space. Unallocated space is space on a hard drive that has not been partitioned or formatted.
Windows can (but not always) create a System Reserved partition, usually 100 to 128MB, that is used to contain system files and the boot manager.
In addition, UEFI systems can (but not always) have a SYSTEM partition, usually 100MB, that contains system files and boot managers.
And all file systems must create a File Table, usually in the first few sectors of a hard drive, that keeps track of the whole thing. Apple has it's own file system, Linux it's own, etc.

The additional unallocated spaces are not an artifact of a DUAL BOOT system, but more of an artifact of how I told PARTITION WIZARD to split the partitions of that single drive? If so that might explain that I do not have these unallocated spaces on my other DUAL BOOT system where the 2 OSes reside on different drives?

Partition Wizard will not create these unallocated spaces because Linux does not have a use for them.

 

[119baystate]

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?