Subject: bug#33389: closed (Re: bug#33389: parted not recognizing partitions in "non-standard" MBRs with valid partition tables)

From: [email-masked] (GNU bug Tracking System)
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2019 16:43:02 +0000

Your bug report

#33389: parted not recognizing partitions in "non-standard" MBRs with valid partition tables

which was filed against the parted package, has been closed.

The explanation is attached below, along with your original report.
If you require more details, please reply to [email-masked].

-- 
33389: http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=33389
GNU Bug Tracking System
Contact [email-masked] with problems

Subject: Re: bug#33389: parted not recognizing partitions in "non-standard" MBRs with valid partition tables
From: Phillip Susi <[email-masked]>
To: Marc Stenson <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2019 12:42:13 -0400
List-Id: <debbugs-submit.debbugs.gnu.org>

Unfortunately to figure out what went wrong would require examining the
partition table, which it appears you have destroyed.  If you happened
to have saved a copy and can provide it, please do so and we can reopen
the bug.

Marc Stenson writes:

> Hello,
>
> While parted 2.3 had no issues with whatever was in the first 446 bytes 
> of the MBR and only looked at the partition table, newer versions such 
> as 3.2 seem to be thrown by unusual boot code (e.g. Grub4DOS) and either 
> show the entire disk as unallocated space or as one big volume/partition 
> with the file system of the first volume. This is despite the partition 
> table being fully compliant and happily read by fdisk and sfdisk.
>
> This may be a "feature" rather than a bug.  Please pardon my ignorance, 
> perhaps newer partition table schemes require the first 446 bits to be 
> parsed. However it could save someone many hours of frustration if this 
> was noted prominently in the documentation.
>
> In my case It was fixed with a simple:
>   dd if=/usr/lib/syslinux/mbr/mbr.bin of=/dev/sdb bs=446 count=1
> after taking the requisite backups and a deep breath.
>
> Thanks and regards,
> Marc

Subject: parted not recognizing partitions in "non-standard" MBRs with valid partition tables
From: Marc Stenson <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2018 00:27:02 +0200
List-Id: <debbugs-submit.debbugs.gnu.org>

Hello,

While parted 2.3 had no issues with whatever was in the first 446 bytes 
of the MBR and only looked at the partition table, newer versions such 
as 3.2 seem to be thrown by unusual boot code (e.g. Grub4DOS) and either 
show the entire disk as unallocated space or as one big volume/partition 
with the file system of the first volume. This is despite the partition 
table being fully compliant and happily read by fdisk and sfdisk.

This may be a "feature" rather than a bug.   Please pardon my ignorance, 
perhaps newer partition table schemes require the first 446 bits to be 
parsed.  However it could save someone many hours of frustration if this 
was noted prominently in the documentation.

In my case It was fixed with a simple:
   dd if=/usr/lib/syslinux/mbr/mbr.bin of=/dev/sdb bs=446 count=1
after taking the requisite backups and a deep breath.

Thanks and regards,
Marc