Ubuntu :: File System For External Drives - Won't Get Corrupted When The Power Fails
Aug 10, 2010
I'm going to reformat my external drives to get rid of the crud that I've built up. (Crud being incremental backups, windows software, and similar things.)(I also want to get rid of the FAT32 file system that they use.) These are USB 1TB drives. The theory is that data is written to it once, but read back a number of times. (I also burn that data to DVD. If there was software that could organize 5TB of data on DVDs, I'd be using them.)
I"m trying to decide whether to use ReiserFS, Ext4, or another file system. Basically, I want something that:
* Won't get corrupted when the power fails;
* Can handle files that are 4+GB in size;
* Uses extends --- preferably without user intervention;
Having problems with external hard drives. I may be wrong, but I suspect they originated with an upgrade to 10.04 last Christmas. Around that time I also started using Amazon's S3 storage system, and, as a consequence, I stopped using my WD 80G external drive, previously used to backup my important files.
A week or so ago I decided to start using the WD drive again. I can't remember exactly what I did, but it wasn't happy - never caused any problems before. When I plug it in, the on-off light as the front keeps flashing on and off, and when I try to remove the drive I get the message: Error unmounting volumne An error occured while performing an operation on "My Book" (Partition 1 of WD 800BB External): The device is busy
Details: Cannot unmount because file system on device is busy Assuming the device had died - it's about 5 years old - I bought a 160G Samsung S-Series drive - my but they do look neat! Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to have solved my problem. I plugged the new drive in, and it happily appeared on my desktop. It seemed a good idea at the time, but I then started to format the drive - using the default option of FAT. All went well at first, but then the format process stopped.
My new Samsung drive now seems to be operating pretty much as the WD device, I can't copy to the drive, and attempts to unmount it generate a response similar to what's happening with the WD drive. Currently, although plugged in, I can't see the drive on my desktop, although it appears under Places. However, when I try to mount the drive, I get the message: Unable to mount SAMSUNG A job is pending on /dev/sdb1
reducing the size of LVM. I did it by using the commands, lvreduce,fsck,resize2fs.After reducing the lvm size, my system is not booting...it is saying file system corrupted error.
Evince in non-gnome systems is unable to open external link. The error msg it shows is
Code:
Unable to open external link The specified location is not supported. I have already googled it, however it only says it is a bug, without any solution available. Evince in gnome systems however work just fine. Is there any way evince can use sensible-browser to open external links?
I am using Ubuntu since release 8.10, but it is first time when i can`t solve problem
when i tried to create new NTFS partition on unallocated disk space with Paragon Partition Manager (damn, that was stupid). Process was aborted with error (later i finally made it with Gparted without problems)
After reboot mine Ubuntu say:
Code: Errors were found while checking the disk drive for /
Press F to attempt to fix errors, I to ignore, S to skip mounting or M for manual recovery. I pressed "F" but that had help only for a boot and doesn`t really fix error :`(
Later i booted from liveCD and had checked partition (/dev/sdb1; file system - ext3) with gparted (result - aborted fixing process with error) Now i can`t even boot from that partition and even mount it from other linux system.
I think that my external hard drive was either "unsafely removed" or powered off at a critical moment because when I tried to connect it to any OS Mac, Windows Ubuntu etc. It could not be read. I forget the Windows error message but the Ubuntu one was "mount error 2".In any case I downloaded testdisk asked it to analyze my hd and about half way through it said that the number of heads per cylinder were 128 and it more than likely should be 255 (or the other way around I forget which but I know the numbers are right). So I went and changed the geometry of the external HD such that the number is what testdisk told me was and the result is that my computers can read it but it seems that all the files are missing.
I used photorec and I have recovered all the files (unnamed and disorganized of course)So this leads me to the following question: is there any way I can repair my file system or access the files so that I don't have to go through the 16,000+ files rename and reorganize them again?
Recently I installed openSuSE 11.3 x64 on PC with Intel motherboard, 4GB RAM & two of 1TB WD RE3.Of course I set RAID1 during installation After some struggle with GRUB which pointed to wrong devices after installation I started to work. But suddenly I found that file system is corrupted after every reboot (It does not depend on what I use and what the way I use - reboot, shutdown -r now or even just poweroff - everything follow to:
Starting MD Raid mdadm: /dev/md2 has been started with two drives mdadm /dev/md3 has been started with 2 drives mdadm /dev/md4 has been started with 2 drives mdadm /dev/md5 has been started with 2 drives
Have just assembled a new computer and thought I would install the 64 bit version of openSUSE 11.2 in a "Windows free zone". After a hiccup or two I have managed to get a system of sorts running but on trying to copy files from my old computer(via a memory stick) it tells me that Vfat is an unknown file system.On my old computer I am running 32 bit openSUSE 11.2 as a dual boot system with Windows XP and have no problems moving files between the two different file systems.Is it possible to get a 64 bit file system to read 32 bit file system drives and if so how do I do it?
The Ext 4 file system of the partition (dev/sdb1) is corrupted. When I seek to repair this using the boot repair tool it is unable to resolve this. I admit that I don't fully understand the problem - except that I'm unable to open and use programs.
Can anyone point me to already built and mostly working utilities that will catalog the contents of (external) USB and flash media in a way that they might be searched?With cheap (under $100 US) terabyte external drives, it is too easy to get another drive and fill it. I'm looking for utilities or applications that will help me know what I have, cull the duplicates, and avoid the need to spin a drive just to see if it holds what I seek.
Years ago there were utilities that would read the contents of diskette media and create a printable "index" or "catalog" page. The pages were conveniently sized to match the diskette so that one could store the page in the diskette sleeve for future reference.Later, the pages got replaced with applications that stored a disketter ID along with each file name. One could then search for a name, or pattern, and discover which diskette held the file(s) of interest. Today we don't have diskette sleeves, but we do have cases for our external USB drives and wallets for our flash media. A printed index would be nice to have.
upgraded from karmic through update managerANDnone of of my external drives cd drive or flash drives are picked upad to go back to karmic and will remain there for a whil
I recently had issues with the latest version of the Linux Kernels and I got that fixed but ever since that has happened none of my Drives will mount and they aren't even recognized.
I am building a home server that will host a multitude of files; from mp3s to ebooks to FEA software and files. I don't know if RAID is the right thing for me. This server will have all the files that I have accumulated over the years and if the drive fails than I will be S.O.L. I have seen discussions where someone has RAID 1 setup but they don't have their drives internally (to the case), they bought 2 separate external hard drives with eSata to minimize an electrical failure to the drives. (I guess this is a good idea)I have also read about having one drive then using a second to rsync data every week. I planned on purchasing 2 enterprise hard drives of 500 MB to 1 GB but I don't have any experience with how I should handle my data
I recently installed Lynx 10.04 amd64. Twice now, my entire file system has become unusable -- each time after a short power outage (2 seconds).
In the first setup, I had two primary partitions: 1) / that was ext4; 2) /home that was ext4.
In the second setup, I changed the /home to ext3.
Both times, after booting up following the power outage, I received a message saying that "serious errors" were found in /home. But, after several reboots, I was able to login and use the system. Then, some time later, I would started getting "Read Only" messages when trying to write to the file system.
fsck gave the following message: "/home terminated with status 4". I received numerous "I/O error" on sda messages.
My question: Is this vulnerability due to using ext4 or is it related more to something else in Lynx 10.04? Further, what can I do (other than buying a power backup device) to avoid my file system becoming unusable after a power outage?
I suspect this is not new but I just can't find where it was treated. Maybe someone can give me a good lead.I just want to prevent certain users from accessing CD/DVD drives and all external drives. They should be able to mount their home directories and move around within the OS but they shouldn't be able to move data away from the PC. Any Clues?
I had a perfectly working Western Digital 250GB external usb hdd about 30 minutes ago. It has about 130GB of data I spent 3 hours copying to it yesterday from my Ubuntu laptop. Just to test it, I plugged it into an older Windows XP machine, and it seemed to work just fine. Then I tried to do the "Safely Remove Hardware" thing. It told me that it could not remove the external drive because another program was accessing it. So okay, I just wait a minute or two. Try again -- same thing. Tried it several more times, waiting a minute or two between each try -- same thing. Then suddenly a message pops up -- cannot write to drive. I also get another error: drive is corrupt, run chkdsk utility. Makes no sense. I was accessing files from the drive from within Windows just fine minutes before.
So since it won't "unmount safely", I just unplug it (probably a mistake, but I didn't see that I had any other choice at the moment), then try mounting it using a LiveCD of Puppy Linux -- Puppy will not mount it, just gives an error but no details.
My Ubuntu laptop, however, is no longer usable -- after I copied the 130GB of files I wanted to save to my external hdd, I attempted an upgrade of Ubuntu. It hosed. I'm still on that Puppy Linux LiveCD right now as I type.
So then. I KNOW this external hdd should be recoverable. I didn't do anything to it except let Windows screw up its ability to be mounted/unmounted, somehow. But I do not know how to go about trying to rescue it. What are the tools I should use? Is there something I can download somewhere that I can burn to a bootable CD or something that can fix a broken NTFS drive/partition? It would almost have to be something bootable at this point since I don't know how to install anything new on Puppy. Wasn't there an "Ultimate Linux Bootable Rescue CD" or something like that a while back? I can't remember it's exact name now.
If worst comes to worst, I suppose I could always reformat the external hdd and then copy the files over to it again. I still have all my files on my laptop's hard drive and Puppy can see them -- the Ubuntu upgrade I attempted did not overwrite all my stuff. But....I would just rather avoid having to spend another 3 hours or more today doing that. All my files are already on the external....I just want to fix it so that I can see them again.
iv been looking around at the different Linux systems particularity the smaller ones such as DSL, Slax and Puppy Linux. However i need a Linux distribution that doesn't have a GUI desktop environment just the plain old terminal to work on. The system would have to be able to boot from a USB drive also. If anyone knows a systems that fits those requirements or something else related please post. Also what file system is best for USB drives for booting systems?
I just picked up a 1 TB Western Digital. Right now i just have Ubuntu 10.04 installed but I think I will need to dual boot with winblows soon for school. Which file system will play nice with both OS's? Should I try to put one of the OS's on the external HDD or install them both on the internal (250 GB Seagate)?
I'm trying to install Ubuntu alongside windows 7 on my machine, and currently I am having difficulty doing so.Upon initial boot of the LiveCD,it says the installer has encountered an unrecognized error and just goes straight to desktop environment. From there, I can restart the installer just fine but here is where the trouble starts.
Currently, I have a 2TB RAID 0 array utilizing 4 500GB Seagate barracuda SATA II drives. The controller is an nForce 780a NVRaid. I currently have two NTFS partitions for windows. One 150GB primary partition for C:, and another 781GB D: for the storage of games, music and movies.When I try to manually setup the partitions in the Ubuntu installer, I do it like this.
- 200MB ext2 primary partition for /boot - 150GB xfs logical partition for / - approx 750GB xfs logical partition for /home (You've probably figured out I'm following the same C: and D: scheme as in windows) - 8192 MB partition for swap
I then proceed with the install. I see the progress bar complete for the boot partition, but then at about 7% for / it stops and gives a message saying partition creation has failed. I even tried using different filesystems like ReiserFS and Ext4. Same thing every time. I am running a 64bit quadcore system BTW if that is of any importance.
net book had some issues with windows, so i had to format its hard drive. i put in the ubuntu live image (usb) (yes i md5summed it, its fine) and i tried installing it using the guided partition (using the whole disk) and i tried setting it up manually, but regardless of what i try, when it attempts to format it to the necessary filesystem, it fails at 5% without fail. even IF i use GParted.
I have a 1.5TB Western Digital Caviar Green in a USB 2.0 external setup with an ext4 file system. I'm going to purchase a 2.0TB Western Digital Caviar Green in a USB 2.0 external case, copy the data over and put my 1.5TB in a fire-resistant box in another house. I'm worried about a couple things however:
(1) I'm worried about the long-term viability of _any_ file system years into the future. I've been storing my data on hard drives (instead of CDs, DVDs or BDs) for years now due to their higher reliability than optical disks. However, the file system used in optical disks is UDF which I think has much longer viability into the future. I'm not going to store terabytes of data on optical discs of course, so I'm wondering what I should choose for a hard drive file system. FAT32 or NTFS (due to Windows' 90%+ presence on the desktop, including still being used by Windows 7) may be the best choice, but I much rather have a open source file system, especially one that allows for permissions, timestamps, etc.
(2) As for my 2TB hard drive that I will be using for a while into the future, should I continue to use ext4 (I've had no problem with it thus far), but is there another file system that has better performance when storing and transferring gigs of data?
Got Samba on fedora 13. Windows machines backup their files to the linux shared folder. I want to attach an external hard disk (USB) to the linux machine in order to backup those files. Can the external hard drive be NTFS or do I need to reformat it as Linux file system (ext3)?
I have a Rad Hat 7.0 old Linux system that crashed due to power failure. On reboot the system goes to Checking Root File System and does 92.5% check and fails.
Here are the error messages I get.
I don't know what to do at this point so I say yes and it goes in some wierd mode.
SO I ran fsck manually but I get an error PARALLEIZING FSCK.
I can't fix the corrupted stuff for the system to reboot. THIS IS VITAL.
I have a 2TB file-system and when the machine reboots it fails the fsck, halts and goes into maintenance mode.Stats: I have have RHEL 5, 2.6.18 kernel, the file-system is an ext3. The file-system is on an EMC AX4 connected with fiber channel HBA.So far my reading tells me this should work because under 2.6 4TB is OK. Any ideas why this fails?If I take it out of the fstab file and mount it manually the boot is OK and the file-system behaves well. I can change the fsck check option in the fstab to 0 but I don't think I should have too. Everything I read says that 2TB ext3 file-systems are OK.
I can't seem to get past step 6 of he installation of Ubuntu 10.04. I get the error: The ext4 file system creation failed... on single partition (no raid). I chose ' / ' as the mount point, and have tried with and without a swap drive. I'm installing on a Sony VAIO VGN-NS160D, and the HDD was previously formatted to NTFS. There's no other OS so I don't see any way of getting a command line to try a sudo fdisk..
The server comes up after rebooting and after setting the hostname it starts setting up logical volume management. It says that 2 logical volume(s) in volume group "VolGroupOO" now active But then it starts to check the file system and errors with fsck.ext3: Device or resource busy while trying to open /dev/sdb1 [failed]
***An error occured during the file system check ***Droppping you to a shell, the system will reboot when you leave the shell Give root password for maintenace
After I log in with the root I get the message mesg: error tty device is not owned by group 'tty' Can the forum tell me how to troubleshoot this issue so I can boot back up again? I have 2 harddrives in this server and only 1 drive was detected when I first installed CentOS. The error first appeared when I mounted the 2nd drive at the mount point /UserGeneratedData. drive was formatted with ext3 before mounting and did not have any data on it I don't want any software RAID if thats what seems to be going on with "VolGroup00"
i needed to change my external hard drive's file system from ext3 to fat32, to use it in windows, which i did the simple way: i shrunk the ext3 partition, made a fat32 partition, copied the files over, removed the ext3 and made the fat32 bigger. unfortunately, while gparted was making the partition larger, my computer shut down. i lost all my files and the partition messed up immediately. i made a new fat32 partition, after deleting the old one, but noticed that gparted was showing 100 gigs already in use (???). so now i have a 300 gb hard drive with only 200 gb i can use; i ran df to make sure gparted wasn't messing up, but indeed it shows the partition as being only 200 gigs in size. i haven't tried making any other kind of partition yet, such as ext3, for fear of losing my files again, and because it wouldn't be permanent anyway, because i need those files in windows and stupid microsoft won't make their OS ext3 compatible.
