Linux Community Magazine

Partitioning a Linux based hard drive means dividing it into many logical drives, each of which is considered as an independent disk. Linux supports different disk partitioning software such as cfdisk (curses based version of fdisk), parted (GNU partition editor), sfdisk (command line version of fdisk) and of course the basic one, fdisk. At times you encounter errors that force you to remove all the existing partitions. In such situations, it becomes essential that you use your recent data backup and restore the lost information. But sometimes, you find that your backup is not as productive that could offer complete data restoration results. Thus, to overcome such situations, you need to use Linux Recovery tools. While trying to execute cfdisk as root to perform tasks like formatting the partition, you get the similar error message on screen:"FATAL ERROR: Bad primary partition : Partition ends in the final partial cylinder"* cfdisk is an improved curses based version o fdi sk. This Linux partition editor is a part of util-linux package included in Linux utility programs. CauseThe above error message occurs if the existing partitions are not in correct layout. cfdisk gives this error message when it detects hard drive partitions in bad order or overlapped. Solution To fix the above issue, you should correct the present disk layout. You can perform this by removing all the existing partitions and creating new ones. To do so, use any of these methods:* Try using cfdisk -z /dev/device command* Make use of disk partitioning utilities like fdisk, gparted etc. You may fail to repartition the hard drive using cfdisk as it prompts errors until it finds issues with disk layout. Using any of the methods, described above, all the data that exists on disk gets deleted. Therefore, to restore the lost information, you should check your data backup status and restore from it. If backup cannot give the required results, scan your disk using Linux Data Recovery applications. Linux Recovery software are specifically designed tools to locate the missing information and restore it safely. In addition, you find these products with interactive interface equipped with rich graphic tools. Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is the finest Linux Recovery utility. It incorporates powerful scanning algorithms, read-only design, intuitive interface and advanced features. It supports data recovery for Ext2, Ext3 and ReiserFS file systems. It is compatible with most of the Linux distributions- Red Hat, SUSE, Caldera, Mandrake, TurboLinux, Slackware, Gentoo etc.