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Thread: blkid reporting wrong file system type

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  1. #1
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    blkid reporting wrong file system type

    More of a curiosity than an issue for me.
    On an Ubuntu x64 10.04.x machine, the blkid command seems to be reading stale information about file systems. The problem partition is from a USB3 connected drive.

    Code:
    $ blkid
    /dev/sdh5: LABEL="mybook" UUID="F21E9E5F1E9E1D23" TYPE="ntfs"
    But I did a mkfs.ext4 on that partition a few weeks ago.
    Code:
    $ df
    Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
    /dev/sdh5            965291104 540102124 376155048  59% /Data/mybook
    and
    Code:
    $ grep mybook /etc/fstab 
    UUID=ab2dbf42-2408-4316-9e62-6ad18ae6013f       /Data/mybook    ext4    defaults        0       2
    and mount shows the truth:
    Code:
    $ mount
    /dev/sdh5 on /Data/mybook type ext4 (rw)
    So there are 3 places that show it correctly as ext4, but blkid doesn't. Is this the expected behavior?

  2. #2
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    Re: blkid reporting wrong file system type

    One more thing?
    what is the partition entry flagged as? (and is it a GPT HDD?)
    Derek

  3. #3
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    Re: blkid reporting wrong file system type

    Run blkid this way and see it it updates to the new information:
    Code:
    sudo blkid -c /dev/null

  4. #4
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    Re: blkid reporting wrong file system type

    It is probably still tagged as ntfs in the partition table. Try
    Code:
    sudo fdisk -l
    to list the partition table.

    It that's it, you can use fdisk to correct it:
    sudo fdisk /dev/sdh then t to change the type, then 5 for the partition number, then 83 for a Linux type.

  5. #5
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    Re: blkid reporting wrong file system type

    Is it GPT or MBR? I honestly do not know and don't recall.

    How can I tell?

    Only 1 HDD here was setup as GPT, but I can't recall if that was this one or not. My ignorance about GPT got the better of me. My fear that GTP wasn't completely supported by Linux tools had me use MBR on some newer HDDs. Just found http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-gpt/ a few minutes ago - the summary has gained my interest.

    I didn't change the partition type inside fdisk, at least I don't recall doing that. Just did a mkfs -t ext4 over the existing partition regardless of the type. That explains what I'm seeing.

    Code:
    $ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdh
    
    Disk /dev/sdh: 2000.4 GB, 2000365289472 bytes
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243197 cylinders
    Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    Disk identifier: 0x00021365
    
       Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
    /dev/sdh1               1      243197  1953479871    5  Extended
    /dev/sdh5               1      122089   980678656    7  HPFS/NTFS
    /dev/sdh6          122089      243197   972800191   83  Linux
    I can't really blame those tools for honoring what they were told. When the drive isn't busy in a few days, I'll change that partition type.

    Both sdh5 and sdh6 have ext4 FS now, but I started out planning to use this portable disk between different devices and some only support NTFS partitions. Now that it is connected to a server, having a linux-based file system was important. The network devices can access over CIFS.

    I'm in the process of swapping out an old software RAID5 with 4x320G (drives from 2006!!!) for 2x2TB disks as RAID1. This USB3 drive will be for backups. I started doing a burn in on the new disks yesterday, but it seems that new firmware is needed AND I'm very willing to change from MBR to GPT on them if that is a better idea.

    Comments welcome.
    Last edited by TheFu; September 9th, 2012 at 03:13 PM.

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