Problem mounting Linux partition on Redhat machine (kernel v. 2.4)

donnaaparis · 05-12-2009, 03:53 AM

I am trying to mount a Sandisk U3 'Titanium Cruzer' on my Redhat Linux machine, but am so far not having much success.

First, I went to the U3 website to download utilities which wiped out the U3 software on the key. Then I partitioned the key on my Mac, using the Mac DiskUtility :

2 GB as Mac HFS
6 GB as Ext3 (using 'ExtFs' for the Mac (from Paragon Software)).

Both my Mac (OS X 10.5) and a second Linux box (Ubuntu, kernel v. 2.6.22-15) can mount and read and write to the ext3 partition.

But I cannot mount the key on my Redhat Linux machine (RH, kernel version 2.4.18-14)

Simply mounting the key using

%> mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /mnt/usbdrive

results in an error 'mount : wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda1, or too many mounted file systems'

I have used this command innumerable times on the RH machine with other (older) devices, so don't think the problem is there. (dir '/mnt/usbdrive' exists and so on).

I'll post the complete results of 'lsusb', 'dmesg', 'tune2fs' and 'fdisk' at the end of this post. They all recognize the key, give useful information and so on. Only 'fdisk' complains about the partition table.

But before going into all that, could the problem be simply that my RH kernel (v. 2.4) doesn't support an inode size of 256? Previous keys I had used were all 128 (I believe), and this new one is 256.

If this is the problem, can I reformat/change the inode size on the key? If so, how?

Thank you, and see output below for more detailed info.

Output from 'fdisk -l /dev/sda'

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 979 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *         1       784   6291456   83  Linux
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(1023, 254, 63) logical=(783, 64, 48)
/dev/sda2           784       977   1549768+  af  Unknown
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(1023, 254, 63) logical=(783, 65, 1)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(1023, 254, 63) logical=(976, 48, 63)

Output from 'dmesg /dev/sda1

Code:

usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 13:44:31 Sep  4 2002
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xefe0, IRQ 11
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xef80, IRQ 11
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub.c: USB hub found
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
usb.c: registered new driver hid
hid-core.c: USB HID support drivers
hub.c: USB new device connect on bus1/1, assigned device number 2
usb.c: USB device 2 (vend/prod 0x781/0x5408) is not claimed by any active driver.
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
usb.c: registered new driver usb-storage
scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
WARNING: USB Mass Storage data integrity not assured
USB Mass Storage device found at 2
USB Mass Storage support registered.

Output from 'tune2fs /dev/sda1 -l'

Code:

tune2fs 1.27 (8-Mar-2002)
Filesystem volume name:   ExtFs
Last mounted on:          <not available>
Filesystem UUID:          9274bceb-3c5c-0f8c-c109-2919df75d577
Filesystem magic number:  0xEF53
Filesystem revision #:    1 (dynamic)
Filesystem features:      resize_inode dir_index filetype sparse_super large_file
Filesystem state:         clean
Errors behavior:          Continue
Filesystem OS type:       Linux
Inode count:              786432
Block count:              1572864
Reserved block count:     78643
Free blocks:              1520528
Free inodes:              786419
First block:              0
Block size:               4096
Fragment size:            4096
Blocks per group:         32768
Fragments per group:      32768
Inodes per group:         16384
Inode blocks per group:   1024
Last mount time:          Tue May 12 09:13:34 2009
Last write time:          Tue May 12 09:32:18 2009
Mount count:              1
Maximum mount count:      32
Last checked:             Mon May 11 21:30:05 2009
Check interval:           15552000 (6 months)
Next check after:         Sat Nov  7 20:30:05 2009
Reserved blocks uid:      0 (user root)
Reserved blocks gid:      0 (group root)
First inode:              11
Inode size:		  256

Output from 'lsusb | grep -i bus'

Code:

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 Virtual Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 Virtual Hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0781:5408 SanDisk Corp.

donnaaparis · 05-12-2009, 08:26 AM

Voila!

After much searching of the web (and little getting done of the work), I figured what I needed to do to mount my new usb key under an older version of Redhat (version 8.0; kernel 2.4.18-14). I believe the problem was with the inode size of my key. Using

Code:

%> tune2fs /dev/sda1 -l

(my usb key) indicated that the key was formatted with an inode size 256, whereas

Code:

%> tune2fs /dev/hda2 -l

(main linux drive on my laptop) indicated my hard drive was formatted for 128. I came across the following
command to reformat my key for inode 128 :

Code:

%> mkfs.ext3 -j -I 128 /dev/sda1

(the -j switch is for journaling; probably good). This probably wiped out the existing ext3 partition, but after resizing, 'tune2fs' confirmed that the new inode size was now 128. I was able to mount the usbdrive ('mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /mnt/usbdrive') with no problem. Writing to the drive worked fine, and reading it back on another machine also worked fine.

NOTE : The 'mkfs.ext3' command only works on file systems that are not mounted. I realized this when I later tried to rename the volume while the key was mounted.

I should add I think I solved the problem, but if anyone has something to add, or my interpretation of the problem is incorrect, please post! Thanks.

Back to work.

farslayer · 05-12-2009, 08:56 AM

Typically you swouldn't use journaling on any flash based device. you wouldn't want the system to do all that additional writing to media that tend to wear out after x number of writes/re-writes..

Quite honestly I would have setup that partition as ext2 if I wanted a native linux file system.

just maknig a general comment, what you do with the comments is up to you