---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Nathan Moore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Dec 19, 2007 6:46 PM Subject: Re: mkfs fails with large partitions To: John Summerfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Well, gnu "partition magic" cd (gnupartd) was able to format the partition this afternoon. Not really sure why gui utility would work while the command line equivalent failed. Oh well. On Dec 19, 2007 6:18 PM, John Summerfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Nathan Moore wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I've been fighting with a series of Western Digital disks for the last > few > > weeks. The general problem is that after allocating the disk as one > large > > partition, formatting the partition fails. > > > > The specific failure is as follows: > > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]# mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hdb1 > > mke2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006) > > Filesystem label= > > OS type: Linux > > Block size=4096 (log=2) > > Fragment size=4096 (log=2) > > 61063168 inodes, 122096000 blocks > > 6104800 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user > > First data block=0 > > Maximum filesystem blocks=0 > > 3727 block groups > > 32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group > > 16384 inodes per group > > Superblock backups stored on blocks: > > 32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, > > 2654208, > > 4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, > 78675968, > > 102400000 > > > > Writing inode tables: 445/3727 > > > > Although there is no error message, the mkfs command freezes up the > machine, > > and nothing further can be done on the system without cycling the power. > > > > I've tried running WD's diagnostic on the disks, and this sometimes > turns up > > a problem. These are the 2'nd RMA'ed pair of drives that I've gotten > from > > WD though - the problem is persistent across multiple drives - it seems > > weird that the replacement drives also have the same problem when being > > formatted. > > > > Are there implicit limits in mkfs about how big the partition can be? > Any > > other ideas about why the drive would refuse to properly format? > > > > A few technical notes: > > > > The drives are ~500GB IDE drives, Western Digital 500GB, 7200RMPM IDE > > UltraATA100 > > > > The system is running SL5.0, i386 > > > > Motherboard is ABit NF-95 > > > > Machine has 2 other hard disks on the SATA bus. > > Seems to me worth trying another brand, maybe Seagate or Hitachi, my > current favourites. > > -- > > Cheers > John > > -- spambait > [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -- Advice > http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php > http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html > <http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/faqs/smart-questions.html> > http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375 > > You cannot reply off-list:-) > -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Nathan Moore Assistant Professor, Physics Winona State University AIM: nmoorewsu - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Nathan Moore Assistant Professor, Physics Winona State University AIM: nmoorewsu - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
