Question

Cannot MKFS a few fs

Asked by: rboudrie

I am running Fedroa 10 (Cambridge) on /sdev/sb, and attempting to create a file system on /dev/sda.

"fdisk" worked properly:

[root@sv1 ~]# fdisk -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6988f336

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1       30401   244196001   83  Linux
[root@sv1 ~]#


When I attempt to make a file system, I get this error:

[root@sv1 ~]# mkfs /dev/sda1
mke2fs 1.41.4 (27-Jan-2009)
/dev/sda1 is apparently in use by the system; will not make a filesystem here!



I have tried re-zeroing the first MB of the drive (via dd if /dev/zero ...); deleting and recreating the partition and rebooting - no luck.   Any ideas?


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Asked On
2009-06-22 at 05:54:18ID24510965
Tags

linux mkfs partition

Topic

Linux Administration

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
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Answers

 

by: cjl7Posted on 2009-06-22 at 06:18:07ID: 24682070

Hi,

Is it used by a logical volume?

vgdisplay -v

Is it used by the system?

mount -a

or

lsof /dev/sda1


//jonas

 

by: rboudriePosted on 2009-06-22 at 20:28:24ID: 24688563

vgdisplay; mount -a and lsof did not show any evidence of use by the system (I had already tried all except for vgdisplay)

 

by: cjl7Posted on 2009-06-23 at 03:27:41ID: 24690493

lsof /dev/sda1

?

can you do a 'pvcreate /dev/sda1' or even 'pvcreate /dev/sda' and then vgcreate + lvcreate?

Sounds very strange...

 

by: rboudriePosted on 2009-06-23 at 04:52:58ID: 24690890

[root@sv1 ~]# lsof /dev/sda1
[root@sv1 ~]# pvcreate /dev/sda1
  Can't open /dev/sda1 exclusively.  Mounted filesystem?
[root@sv1 ~]#


I agree this is indeed strange.  I found one reference googling that indicates this may be a bug in the code to automount a hot plugged USB drive, but I can't find a way to turn that feature off.

 

by: cjl7Posted on 2009-06-23 at 23:53:50ID: 24698799

Uh,

Is this a USB device?!

Try to logout of the GUI session and work in terminal-mode (Alt+F1).

Could you post the output of 'mount'?

Sorry for the run-a-round, grasping for straws here...


 

by: rboudriePosted on 2009-06-24 at 05:13:29ID: 24700246

Not a usb, hard drive.

"mount" would seem to be irrelevant until the drive has a file system on it.

I suppose I could go to run level 1 to mkfs - that would probably get the job done, but I would still be wondering.

 

by: cjl7Posted on 2009-06-24 at 05:34:48ID: 24700392

Well if you can get it to work in terminal mode we could exclude stuff from the problem-solving matrix...

//jonas

 

by: notmistakenPosted on 2009-06-24 at 13:45:03ID: 24705617

Have you considered a bad disk drive? Sometimes the partition table is readable but the rest of the drive is bad. Let's say your drive has a problem with moving the heads, it can still access the first block on the disk which contains the partition table.

 

by: rboudriePosted on 2009-10-12 at 13:10:05ID: 31595029

This didn't solve the problme, but is good advise.  The ExpertsExchange system irnogre the "sumbit" button when I tried to close the question.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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