Re: filesystem size vs. physical size


Subject: Re: filesystem size vs. physical size
From: Aurel Wisse (wisse@sympatico.ca)
Date: Mon Oct 11 1999 - 18:12:19 MDT


Thanks Jim.

Turns out the "workaround" is ... reinstalling. I didn't have to reformat
anything. I guess the mke2fs with the ramdisk didn't format the root
partition properly the first time.

For future occurences of this, and maybe in order to avoid having to wait
for the install two times, I suggest using the pdisk application from MacOS
first (obviously only on partitions which don't contain the startup
volume), which should correctly write the partition table. Then reboot (I
read somewhere that this might be necessary. Anyway, it can't hurt, can
it?) Then, from within the RedHat installer, the partitions are recognized
and should be correctly formated during the first run.

Still mysterious is the strange behaviour of the /dev/hda5 HFS+ and
/dev/hda6 HFS partitions of 512MB described below and in the original post
(mysterious change of size...). While this is not an issue particularly
suited for this list, I would apreciate a hint from somebody who has seen
this before.

Aurel Wisse

>Aurel Wisse's bits of Mon, 11 Oct 1999 translated to:
>
>> Hardware: iMac Rev. B, 4GB/160MB.
>>
>> Problem: When booting into YDL, I get at one point:
>> swapon /dev/hda8: Invalid Argument [failed]
>> Checking root filesystem
>> /dev/hda7 filesystem size (according to superblock) is 1064835 blocks
>> physical size is 983040.
>> .... bla bla bla ... [failed]
>>
>> This is my partition table (according to pdisk):
>The partition table looked reasonable. The only significant difference
>between it and what I have is that my partition table has a couple extra
>drivers (Apple_Driver43*Macintosh at base 64 and 118). Don't know if
>that is meaningful or not. The rest is almost identical, including the
>order.
>
>> I reformatted my 4GB hard disk.
>> Partition 5 is HFS+ (is this the problem?)
>This shouldn't be a problem, at least it wasn't on my machine.
>
>> Partition 6 is HFS (with small system + BootX to boot into YDL)
>I just put my kernel and BootX stuff on my first (HFS+) partition
>and left a small second partition (HFS) for transferring files.
>
>> Another funny thing:
>> When I am booting into partition 5 (Mac HFS+), the sizes of the disks
>>are: hda5:
>> 1.8GB, hda6: 189MB (as read from Get Info)
>> But ewhen I am booting into partition 6 (Mac HFS) I get: hda5: 2GB,
hda6: 26MB (also from Get Info).
>Certainly sounds like there is a very inconsistent view of your partition
>table.
>
>> Will the problems go away if I reformat hda and make all my partitions HFS?
>I set up all of my partitions from the Mac side before starting the install.
>This included 1 HFS+ partition for MacOS/boot files and 3 HFS partitions
>(transfer, root, and swap). Then I just selected pre-existing partitions
>during the install.
>
>> Or is there a way to tweak the superblock such that it coincides with the
>> partition table?
>If you can get at the root partition from Linux, mke2fs can be run with
>the -S option which only writes the superblock and group descriptors. It
>shouldn't mess with any of the inode information. However, this is one
>of those last ditch type of things with no guarantees about what will
>really happen to your data.
>
>Jim



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