FreeLists / haiku-development / [haiku-development] Available spaces on partitions

[Stephan Assmus <superstippi@xxxxxx>]

Hi all,

I would like to get some feedback on a question regarding available spaces 
on partitions that are smaller than a certain "threshold". I think these 
spaces appear because of positioning restrictions for partitions with 
certain hard drive layouts and properties. I don't know enough about it, 
but I have encountered these "unavailable for partitions" spaces anytime I 
have dealt with partitioning tools, especially when installing Windows. For 
example, I would create one big partition to cover the entire drive, and 
after doing so, there would be 8 MB of empty space left besides the new 
partition -> Huh? My questions are, I guess, 1) wether this is really 
unavoidable because of some placement restrictions. 2) wether to show these 
to the user at all (I guess not). And 3) if there is any more reliable way 
to detect a "bogus space" other than looking at it's size and, say, ignore 
anything below or at 8 MByte. Maybe with even bigger drives, these spaces 
could be more than 8 MByte. Like I said, I don't know enough about the 
subject, any feedback appreciated.

Best regards,
-Stephan