diff --git a/src/cmd/linuxkit/initrd/initrd.go b/src/cmd/linuxkit/initrd/initrd.go
index f6fb5bb76..1475373f1 100644
--- a/src/cmd/linuxkit/initrd/initrd.go
+++ b/src/cmd/linuxkit/initrd/initrd.go
@@ -9,14 +9,12 @@ import (
 
 	// drop-in 100% compatible replacement and 17% faster than compress/gzip.
 	gzip "github.com/klauspost/pgzip"
-	"github.com/linuxkit/linuxkit/src/cmd/linuxkit/pad4"
 	"github.com/surma/gocpio"
 )
 
 // Writer is an io.WriteCloser that writes to an initrd
 // This is a compressed cpio archive, zero padded to 4 bytes
 type Writer struct {
-	pw *pad4.Writer
 	gw *gzip.Writer
 	cw *cpio.Writer
 }
@@ -136,8 +134,7 @@ func CopySplitTar(w *Writer, r *tar.Reader) (kernel []byte, cmdline string, ucod
 // NewWriter creates a writer that will output an initrd stream
 func NewWriter(w io.Writer) *Writer {
 	initrd := new(Writer)
-	initrd.pw = pad4.NewWriter(w)
-	initrd.gw = gzip.NewWriter(initrd.pw)
+	initrd.gw = gzip.NewWriter(w)
 	initrd.cw = cpio.NewWriter(initrd.gw)
 
 	return initrd
@@ -157,15 +154,11 @@ func (w *Writer) Write(b []byte) (n int, e error) {
 func (w *Writer) Close() error {
 	err1 := w.cw.Close()
 	err2 := w.gw.Close()
-	err3 := w.pw.Close()
 	if err1 != nil {
 		return err1
 	}
 	if err2 != nil {
 		return err2
 	}
-	if err3 != nil {
-		return err3
-	}
 	return nil
 }
diff --git a/src/cmd/linuxkit/pad4/pad4.go b/src/cmd/linuxkit/pad4/pad4.go
deleted file mode 100644
index e78490fbe..000000000
--- a/src/cmd/linuxkit/pad4/pad4.go
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,46 +0,0 @@
-package pad4
-
-import (
-	"bytes"
-	"io"
-)
-
-// A Writer is an io.WriteCloser. Writes are padded with zeros to 4 byte boundary
-type Writer struct {
-	w     io.Writer
-	count int
-}
-
-// Write writes output
-func (pad *Writer) Write(p []byte) (int, error) {
-	n, err := pad.w.Write(p)
-	if err != nil {
-		return 0, err
-	}
-	pad.count += n
-	return n, nil
-}
-
-// Close adds the padding
-func (pad *Writer) Close() error {
-	mod4 := pad.count & 3
-	if mod4 == 0 {
-		return nil
-	}
-	zero := make([]byte, 4-mod4)
-	buf := bytes.NewBuffer(zero)
-	n, err := io.Copy(pad.w, buf)
-	if err != nil {
-		return err
-	}
-	pad.count += int(n)
-	return nil
-}
-
-// NewWriter provides a new io.WriteCloser that zero pads the
-// output to a multiple of four bytes
-func NewWriter(w io.Writer) *Writer {
-	pad := new(Writer)
-	pad.w = w
-	return pad
-}