gdisk: strange warning message on newly partitioned/populated disk

Question

I just ran gdisk on a newly partitioned and fully populated disk and am getting the following error message.

I am not sure how things can be overlapping since I've just created this ONE single partition.

Should I worry?

merc@merc-All-Series:~$ sudo gdisk
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1

Type device filename, or press <Enter> to exit: ^C
merc@merc-All-Series:~$ sudo gdisk /dev/sda
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1

Partition table scan:
  MBR: MBR only
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: not present


***************************************************************
Found invalid GPT and valid MBR; converting MBR to GPT format
in memory. THIS OPERATION IS POTENTIALLY DESTRUCTIVE! Exit by
typing 'q' if you don't want to convert your MBR partitions
to GPT format!
***************************************************************


Warning! Secondary partition table overlaps the last partition by
33 blocks!
You will need to delete this partition or resize it in another utility.

Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 1953523055 sectors, 931.5 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 7F03D27C-4FD8-4A31-A027-8F438F676805
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1953523021
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2014 sectors (1007.0 KiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048      1953523054   931.5 GiB   8300  Linux filesystem

Command (? for help):

Whatever program you used to partition the disk fscked it up: it made the partition run all the way to the end of the disk, but the last 34 sectors are used for the backup of the GPT. — psusi, Mar 06 '18 at 16:47

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 02 '23 at 19:22

gdisk treats discs primarily from the point of view of GPT partitioning. It auto-converts MBR-style partition tables to GPT partition tables at startup, as you can see. It writes EFI partition tables.

You have partitioned your disc in such a way that it is not possible to write an GPT partition table to it. You've filled the entire disc with a single partition, and not left room at the end for the backup GPT partition table that GPT partitioning would place there. Ironically, you've also left far too much room at the start, for the primary GPT partition table there, because the tool that you used employed 1MiB alignment.

If you want to be able to use tools that will attempt to GPT partition your disc, then shrink that partition down enough for the backup GPT partition table to be placed at the end of the disc. As the message says.

gdisk: strange warning message on newly partitioned/populated disk

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