Re: mkdosfs hangs while scanning for bad blocks

[John Allen <john.allen@dublinux.net>]

whollygoat@letterboxes.org wrote:
> Anybody know what's going on or can help debug
> this at least?
>
> Running squeeze I am having trouble reformatting a 
>
>   * 64MB memory stick and a 
>   * 160GB 2.5" HD in a USB linked 
>     external enclosure
>
> using "mkdosfs -c /dev/sd{ag}1".
>
>   
I can report the same happens on Lenny with the latest amd64 kernel.
> In both cases the process hung while checking for
> bad blocks.  ps shows the process to be in
> uninteruptible sleep.  man ps says that it is 
> probably related to IO.
>
> I eventually got the memory stick to finish but
> the external HD still hangs (at the same block
> count, at least, on 3 of the tries).
>
> kill -KILL doesn't unjam the process.  Only unplugging
> the drive seems to free things up.  If you plugg
> it back in right away, it will start counting
> off blocks as it checks again and finishes.  But, the
> filesystem mounts as ext3 because...
>
> "mke2fs -c -j /dev/sda1" will work just fine on this drive.
>
> Thanks,
>
> will
>