Re: [SD4L-user] mkfs hangs when creating large container from HD partition

[Jonathan C. <jco...@ro...>]

Hi Ulrich,

> $ ls -l /dev/sda*
> brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 0 2008-08-04 12:44 /dev/sda
> brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 1 2008-08-04 12:44 /dev/sda1
> brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 3 2008-08-04 13:43 /dev/sda3
> brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 5 2008-08-04 12:44 /dev/sda5
sda3 is the partition I used. It is a primary partition.
I belong to the disk group, but I cannot create the volume unless I run 
Scramdisk using sudo.

Nothing is reported to /var/log/messages about the volume creation.

When I kill the stalled mkfs.ext2 process, I briefly see a Scramdisk 
Create dialog showing volume creation 20-30% complete. Then it is 
covered by an error dialog "Couldn't mount device: Invalid argument". If 
I move that aside, I can see the value in the Scramdisk Create dialog 
change to 80% complete. Clicking OK in the error dialog also closes the 
create dialog.

A straight mkfs of an ext2 filesystem on the partition works normally.

Hans-Ulrich Juettner wrote:
> I'm especially worried about the odd observation that scramdisk
> reports the size of the whole drive not of the partition you
> wanted to create the container on. If somehow the device of the
> whole drive has been chosen, a possible reason of the hanging
> might have been that the kernel driver has mounted the device
> read only because of missing access rights. If so, it's very
> odd that the container has been created that far. But in that
> case you have been lucky that the device wasn't overwritten.
>
> In order to further investigate the problem could you please
> check by "ls -l" the access rights of the devices of your whole
> drive and the partition in question. Moreover, it might be
> helpful to have a look at /var/log/messages what the scramdisk
> kernel driver has reported on the event of the failed container
> creation.
>
> Best regards
> Ulrich
>