partprobe asked me to make an error report. I had partitioned a USB stick with fdisk. Pointed partprobe at it immediately afterwards.
Here's the prior fdisk output followed by what partprobe did and said: Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/sdb: 8589 MB, 8589934592 bytes 64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 8192 cylinders, total 16777216 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: 0x0008e56c Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 2048 2099199 1048576 83 Linux /dev/sdb2 2099200 3123199 512000 83 Linux /dev/sdb3 3123200 4147199 512000 83 Linux /dev/sdb4 4147200 16777215 6315008 5 Extended Command (m for help): w The partition table has been altered! Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table. Syncing disks. workabout@Laptop:/media$ sudo partprobe /dev/sdb Backtrace has 13 calls on stack: 13: /lib/libparted.so.0(ped_assert+0x2a) [0x35287a] 12: /lib/libparted.so.0(+0x4128a) [0x38a28a] 11: /lib/libparted.so.0(+0x42157) [0x38b157] 10: /lib/libparted.so.0(+0x4344c) [0x38c44c] 9: /lib/libparted.so.0(+0xe161) [0x357161] 8: /lib/libparted.so.0(ped_disk_add_partition+0x262) [0x35a9f2] 7: /lib/libparted.so.0(+0x44ea5) [0x38dea5] 6: /lib/libparted.so.0(+0x450af) [0x38e0af] 5: /lib/libparted.so.0(ped_disk_new+0x75) [0x35b7d5] 4: partprobe() [0x8048c80] 3: partprobe(main+0x15b) [0x8048f7b] 2: /lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe7) [0x7f0ce7] 1: partprobe() [0x8048a71] A bug has been detected in GNU Parted. Refer to the web site of parted http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/parted.html for more information of what could be useful for bug submitting! Please email a bug report to bug-parted@gnu.org containing at least the version (2.3) and the following message: Assertion (cyl_size <= 255 * 63) at ../../../libparted/labels/dos.c:650 in function probe_partition_for_geom() failed. Aborted workabout@Laptop:/media$ Afterwards, this is what fdisk says: workabout@Laptop:/media$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb1 Disk /dev/sdb1: 1073 MB, 1073741824 bytes 64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 1024 cylinders Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/sdb1 doesn't contain a valid partition table
