Re: dosfslabel finds problem, e2fsck does not

[Florian Kulzer <florian.kulzer+debian@icfo.es>]

On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 14:04:16 -0400, Thomas H. George wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 11:25:42 -0400, Thomas H. George wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > > My system, Squeeze, cannot install the latest kernel image because
> > > > > > > > > > > dosfslabel finds a problem that prevents the installation of linux-base.
> > > > > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > > > > Trying to resolve this I used e2fsck to check each of the disk
> > > > > > > > > > > partitions and e2fsck reported all the partitions clean.  However, the
> > > > > > > > > > > result of running dosfslabel /dev/hda1 results in the following output:
> > > > > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > > > > There are differences between boot sector and its backup.
> > > > > > > > > > > Differences: (offset:original/backup)

[...]

> I started by using parted to delete hda5 (logical), hda2 (extended) and
> then hda1 (primary). I then used commands of the form 
> 
> parted -a opt /dev/hda primary 32.3kB 1999MB
> 
> to restore the partitions.  They still did not end on cylinder
> boundries.  Deleted the partitions again and tried -a min.  They still
> did not end on cylinder boundries.  Deleted the partitions again and
> tried -a cylinder.  They still did not end on cylinder boundries.
> Deleted the partitions again, switched to fdisk and specified the
> partition sizes by cylinders.  They still do not end on cylinder
> boundries.  Switched to gparted and made the partition file types ext3.
> 
> Rebooted - no problems. Note: The system booting from /dev/hda.  The
> script lilo wrote in the mbr has not been effected by the changes listed
> above.
> 
> Ran dosfslabel /dev/hda1.  The reponse was: Logical sector size
> is zero.  Repeated this for each partition on each of my hard drives
> with the same result.

I see the same for my partitions, except for /dev/hda1 where I get "Seek
to 60011609600:Invalid argument". It should not really matter, in all
all cases an error is returned, so dosfslabel fails. This does not
surprise me for ext3 partitions; I still think it is a mistake that the
postinst script of linux-base runs dosfslabel on the partition.

> Disconnected every usb device attache to my system.
> 
> Ran aptitude -f install.  The result:

[...]

> Setting up linux-base (2.6.32-15) ...
> Logical sector size (15624 bytes) is not a multiple of the physical sector size.
> dosfslabel failed: 256 at /var/lib/dpkg/info/linux-base.postinst line 1059, <STDIN> line 10.
> dpkg: error processing linux-base (--configure):

[...]

Erase all references to vfat filesystems (see Virgo Pärna's suggestion)
and to removable devices from your /etc/fstab; make sure that "mount"
only lists your built-in hard drives. If the installation of linux-base
still fails after that then it is probably time to file a bug against
the package (after carefully checking out the existing reports).

-- 
Regards,            |
          Florian   |