[CentOS] Hard disk, format, filesystem

Fri Aug 15 14:45:46 UTC 2008
Jussi Hirvi <greenspot at greenspot.fi>

Ok, I give up... I have to ask. This is CentOS 5.

I switched one of my raid1 disks, and I already thought I had succeeded. But
now it seems that something is very wrong with the first partition on the
new disk. Luckily my system is fully bootable with the other disk.

Here's some info. The new disk is sdb.

// I removed all partitions with parted, and created the first one again.
// parted does not complain:

[root at mail dev]# parted sdb
Using /dev/sdb
(parted) print     

Model: ATA SAMSUNG HD321KJ (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 320GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End    Size   Type     File system  Flags
 1      0.51kB  101MB  101MB  primary  ext2

(parted) rm 1      
(parted) mkpart primary 1 100
(parted) print     

Model: ATA SAMSUNG HD321KJ (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 320GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End    Size   Type     File system  Flags
 1      0.51kB  100MB  100MB  primary  ext2

(parted) quit      

// If I try to create a file system on the new partition,
// I get an error message:

[root at mail dev]# mkfs ext3 sdb1
mke2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
mkfs.ext2: invalid blocks count - sdb1

// I cannot create a volume label:
[root at mail dev]# e2label sdb1 /mnt/mirror
[root at mail dev]# e2label sdb1

[root at mail dev]#


//fsck informs me like this:

[root at mail dev]# e2fsck sdb1
e2fsck 1.39 (29-May-2006)
The filesystem size (according to the superblock) is 77392578 blocks
The physical size of the device is 24414 blocks
Either the superblock or the partition table is likely to be corrupt!
Abort<y>? yes

// I even tried fsck using the secondary (or tertiary) superblock
// but no success. 


So now what? Apart from  doing a low-level format.

- Jussi

--
Jussi Hirvi * Green Spot
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Tel. & fax +358 9 493 981 * Mobile +358 40 771 2098 (only sms)
jussi.hirvi at greenspot.fi * http://www.greenspot.fi