FC2 -> FC3 issue with Partition table entries not in disk order

[Michael Mansour]

Hi John,

 --- John Summerfield <debian at herakles.homelinux.org>
wrote: 
> On Thursday 02 December 2004 09:27, Michael Mansour
> wrote:
> > # fdisk -l /dev/sda
> >
> > Disk /dev/sda: 9056 MB, 9056904704 bytes
> > 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1101 cylinders
> > Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
> >
> >    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks
>   Id
> >  System
> > /dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391
>   fd
> >  Linux raid autodetect
> > /dev/sda2            1037        1101      522112+
>  82
> >  Linux swap
> > /dev/sda3              14         407     3164805
>   fd
> >  Linux raid autodetect
> > /dev/sda4             408        1036     5052442+
>   5
> >  Extended
> > /dev/sda5             408         774     2947896
>   fd
> >  Linux raid autodetect
> > /dev/sda6             775         905     1052226
>   fd
> >  Linux raid autodetect
> > /dev/sda7             906        1036     1052226
>   fd
> >  Linux raid autodetect
> >
> > Partition table entries are not in disk order
> >
> > server2 seems to be working fine, but this is a
> weird
> > issue since I built the filesystems originally
> like
> > server1 under FC2, and the upgrade process has
> seemed
> > to make modifications which are undesirable.
> Notice
> > the warning at the bottom of the fdisk output?
> >
> > How can I fix this?
> 
> I presume sda1, being small, goes into /boot.
> 
> My reading of the table is that swap is at one edge
> of your data areas. If you 
> sort it, it will be at the other edge.
> 
> I don't think either place is a good place for swap
> (which is why I don't 
> recommend or use swap partitions) because, on
> average, each time your disk 
> heads move to the swap the cross half the data and
> on average they cross half 
> the data on the way back.
> 
> The outside edge might be marginally better (the
> disk surface moves past the 
> heads a bit faster), but the swap might not be the
> most important stuff to 
> get off disk or put on it.
> 
> I say, if swapping's a problem, add RAM.
> 
> And leave the partition table alone. Fixing it
> involves downtime far beyond 
> what you can hope to pick up later, and carries the
> risk that something will 
> go wrong.

When I setup these partitions I set them up as the
first table in the email. I'm not arguing whether swap
is necessary or not, or where it exists on the disk,
what I'm saying is that for server2, the partition
table was setup as server1's partition table (exactly
the same) and it was running under FC2, when I did the
upgrade to FC3, server2's partition table is as shown
above.

Why did the upgrade change this? how can I fix it?

I built server2 on FC2 and then performed an upgrade
to FC3 to see if I could successfully upgrade a
production server in this way (as I have other FC2
machines I want to upgrade). I then built server1 to
see how a fresh FC3 install would proceed.

I'm happy with server1, as it's a fresh install and
doesn't seem to have any issues, but am unhappy with
server2 (the upgraded FC2 machine) since it means I
won't be using the upgrade features of FC2 -> FC3 but
instead rebuilding the production servers from scratch
to FC3.

Either way, I'm still interested to know how to fix
the partition table issue, since this was really the
only issue with the upgrade.

Michael.


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