Re: fsck fails with "partition in use" error after partition umount'ed
On Sun, Nov 30, 2014 at 06:09:38PM +1100, Scott Ferguson wrote:
> On 30 November 2014 at 17:47, Joel Roth <joelz@pobox.com> wrote:
> > I notice that /dev/sdb1, an ext4 partition on a USB drive has remounted
> > read-only.
> >
> > I try
> >
> > umount /dev/sdb1
> >
> > then
> >
> > fsck /dev/sdb1
> >
> > fsck from util-linux 2.25.2
> > e2fsck 1.42.12 (29-Aug-2014)
> > /dev/sdb1 is in use.
> > e2fsck: Cannot continue, aborting.
> >
> > Is there a way that a volume can be in use without being
> > mounted?
>
> Yes. If you have disk errors (not data, disk). It'll be prominent in
> your logs (if it's a SATA grep for ATA). For your sake I hope I'm
> wrong or that it's just a loose connection.
Nothing obvious in dmesg, which seems like the only relevant
log with recent entries.
syslog, kern.log, auth.log and debug show no changes since
June.
> You may find that the device had problems during boot, and the fsck is
> 'trying' to fix them - but is unable to access the disk.
For months, maybe longer, I've had irregularities with USB
drives. When mounted for a long time, I will get errors.
In this situation, I expect that if I unmount the drive, I
should be able to run fsck, not have to reboot because some
reference in the kernel/driver/fs code says the unmounted
drive is still in use.
Regards,
Joel
> <snipped>
> >
> > The underlying issue is that the driver detects an I/O
> > error.
>
> See comment above.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Joel
> >
> >
> > --
> > Joel Roth
> >
>
> Kind regards
>
--
Joel Roth
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