Partitions are not aligned correctly

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1

Hello,
there is a remark in the KDE partition management log. Actually everything works. That means I can read and write all my partition, but still the entries worry me.
I basically have 4 hard disks in the system, two of which are affected by the messages.
My second Kingston is affected three times and my fourth Samsung also receives a message.
My Kingston is set up like this:
1MB are unallocated before the first partition
1st partition: dev/sdb1 300MB Fat32 Boot/efi
2nd partition: dev/sdb2 103GB ext4 root
3rd partition: dev/sdb3 8.29GB Linux swap
after that approx. 2.5MB unused
my Samsung is an external USB disk, which is completely intended for Backup and set up like this:
1st partition : dev/sdd1 here was a 16MB partition reserved for Microsoft, which I had simply left untouched.
2nd partition: dev/sdd2 477GB ext4 home backup
3rd partition: dev/sdd3 68GB ext4 root backup
4th partition: dev/sdd4 152GB NTFS Windows backup

The output of the log would be

2024-08-04 18:01:06: Use backend module: pmsfdiskbackendplugin (1)
2024-08-04 18:01:06: Devices are searched ...
2024-08-04 18:01:06: Device found: CT2000BX500SSD1
2024-08-04 18:01:06: Device found: KINGSTON SA400S37120G
2024-08-04 18:01:06: The partition "/dev/sdb2" is not correctly aligned (last sector: 217.051.457, modulo: 322).
2024-08-04 18:01:06: The partition "/dev/sdb3" is not correctly aligned (first sector: 217.051.458, modulo: 322).
2024-08-04 18:01:06: The partition "/dev/sdb3" is not correctly aligned (last sector: 234.436.544, modulo: 1.985).
2024-08-04 18:01:07: Device found: WDC WD15EADS-00P8B0
2024-08-04 18:01:08: Device found: ST750LM022 HN-M750MBB
2024-08-04 18:01:09: The partition "/dev/sdd1" is not correctly aligned (first sector: 34, modulo: 34).
2024-08-04 18:01:10: Search finished.

How can this misalignment be corrected and where does it come from?

2

This happens occasionally when using the KDE partitioner and the Calamares installer combination.

You can fix this misalignment using GParted installed to a bootable Manjaro Live DVD/ISO/USB. Resize the partition by even a small amount (1 MB), and the partition should extend to the next available (1 MB increment) boundary.

If the partition in question is / (root), then only resize from the end of the partition (the right side, as it appears in GParted).

GParted is a GUI tool which can be installed to memory on a Manjaro Live Installer as easily as in your own user account.

sudo pacman -S gparted

I hope this helps. Cheers.

3

This is indeed the combination I used, as the most obvious thing to do is to use the existing software.

Yes, that is the case, which means that I can no longer correct all the alignments in the current installation, but would have to completely reinstall my Linux, which I think is exaggerated, since I don’t notice any problems.

Thanks for the information, it’s really very helpful, it’s just a shame that I’m only finding out about it now.

4

Reinstalling shouldn’t be necessary; especially if the misalignment is at the end (right side) of / – Whatever partition is next to it (on the right) can be shrunk by 1 MB, and then / (root) can be extended (to the right) by 1 MB to fill the space.

The procedure is generally non-destructive.

I should also mention that some people just choose to ignore it, though, it’s still irritating to know the issue exists, and not fix it. :smile_cat:

Cheers.

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5

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