diff --git a/extensions/ufs.sh b/extensions/ufs.sh
index fb575fc12..78aad28e3 100644
--- a/extensions/ufs.sh
+++ b/extensions/ufs.sh
@@ -2,9 +2,13 @@
 function extension_prepare_config__ufs {
     # Check sfdisk version is >= 2.41 for UFS support
     local sfdisk_version
-    sfdisk_version=$(sfdisk --version | awk '/util-linux/ {print $NF}')
+    if ! command -v sfdisk >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+        exit_with_error "sfdisk not found. Please install util-linux (provides sfdisk) >= 2.41."
+    fi
+    # Extract the util-linux version and strip any non-numeric characters for robustness
+    sfdisk_version="$(sfdisk --version 2>/dev/null | awk '/util-linux/ {print $NF}' | tr -cd '0-9.')"
     if [[ -z "${sfdisk_version}" ]]; then
-        exit_with_error "sfdisk not found - please install util-linux / fdisk >= 2.41 package"
+        exit_with_error "Unable to determine util-linux version from 'sfdisk --version'."
     fi
     if linux-version compare "${sfdisk_version}" lt "2.41"; then
         exit_with_error "UFS extension requires sfdisk >= 2.41 (from util-linux). Current version: ${sfdisk_version}"