Comment 4 for bug 578199

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Alex Bligh (ubuntu-alex-org) wrote :

I'm not sure that's right. Firstly, partitions are meant to be cylinder aligned (per the original DOS specs). sfdisk etc. will refuse to write partition tables unless they are, unless --force is specified. Secondly, fdisk and other utilities are now (when they can read the geometry) creating 1Mb minimum MBR gaps - See (e.g.)
  ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux-ng/v2.18/v2.18-ReleaseNotes (under fdisk)
  http://www.spinics.net/lists/util-linux-ng/msg03405.html

You have only created a 62 sector gap (63 sectors less one for the MBR), i.e. 31kb, which isn't going to be enough for grub2 by your own article (though I am not sure where the 32kb number comes from here). Last time I checked, default Ubuntu was putting in a whole cylinder. I accept that most of the reason for cylinder aligning partitions is so that CHS loaders can work, and because whacky MS copy protection schemes write data to the first cylinder, and on virtual machines these are not going to be an issue most of the time, but it seems we are at least holding ourselves a hostage to fortune with grub2 having less than 32kb.

Does parted not use a 1 cyl default when it is told the geometry?