I had two drives partitioned the same and running 2 raid partitions on each.

One died and I replaced it under warranty for the same model.

While trying to partition it, the first partition can only start on sector 2048, instead of 63 that was before. Driver have different geometry as previous and remaining ones. (Fewer heads/more cylinders)

old drive:

$ sudo fdisk -c -u -l /dev/sdb 

Disk /dev/sdb: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000aa189

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *          63   174080339    87040138+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb2       174080340   182482334     4200997+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3       182482335  3907024064  1862270865   fd  Linux raid autodetect

remanufactured drive received from warranty:

$ sudo fdisk -c -u -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
81 heads, 63 sectors/track, 765633 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000d0b5d

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048  ...

why is that?