ext2 filesystem mount problem
 

Hi

I formatted a hard disk from my pc with ext2. I am using this hard drive in an embedded system. When I plug the hard drive into the embedded system and try to mount it I get the following error.

mount -t ext2 /dev/sda /mnt/sda
EXT2-fs (sda1): error: ext2_check_descriptors: Block bitmap for group 0 not in group (block 50462976)!
EXT2-fs (sda1): group descriptors corrupted
mount: mounting /dev/sda1 on /mnt/ failed: Invalid argument

Can anyone tell me what this means?

Thanks

Jon

Is there a typo here (/dev/sda vs /dev/sda1)?

Retry using this:

Sorry I meant to write sda1. The error is still there with sda1 used.

What happens if you let the system figure out the filesystem used?
You might want to add the -v flag to get some more output.

It is possible that the default parameters used by the computers mkfs like block size is not compatible with the embedded system. Does your embedded system have mkfs?

If I let the system figure out the filesystem and use the -v flag I get the sames result.

I formatted the hard disk on a Windows pc using a program called EaseUS partition master. The only parameter I could change is the cluster size which I set to 4K. I have mkfs.ext2 on Busybox but it was taking so long to do that I gave up in the end.

Thanks

Jon

That might be the problem. I would use mkfs.ext2 and try again. This might take a while, but that all depends on the size of that partition and the options given to mkfs.ext2.

The trouble is it took about 5 mins on the pc and over 3 hours without finishing in the embedded system. Ideally I would like to avoid doing it on the embedded system. But if I don't have a choice then I will. Do you know why there would be a compatibility issue between the two devices. I guess I just assumed that an ext2 file system would work on any device without issue.

I have attached the output of running mkfs.ext2 on the embedded system.

You specified a 4k cluster size... which may not be what the embedded controller handles. This may have caused what the filesystem considers to be block 0 to start in the wrong place.

If you are going to be working on a linux embedded system, I suggest getting a linux workstation as well.

It looks like the difference is inode size. 2.6 kernels default to 256 but 2.4 kernels default 128. Do you know what kernel version is running on embedded system?

mkfs.ext2 -I 128 /dev/sda1

The Kernel is 3.0. So I guess that would be the 256 inode size?

I would expect it to be 256. What kernel are you running on your desktop?

Well I actually created the ext2 using a program on a Windows machine. The only parameter I could change was the cluster size that I set to 4k. So not sure what inode size it chose to use.

And what program did you use?

As suggested it would be best to format the drive via linux vs windows. Any current Live CD version should work.