1 Topic by eldiener

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Topic: Error when changing partition label

Using the latest GParted live 0.21.9-1 I successfully copied a FAT32 from an MBR drive to an area of a GPT drive at /dev/sdb22. When I tried to change the partition label I received an error:

Set Partition Label "WINLXSH01215" on /dev/sdb22
  Calibrate /dev/sdb22 successful
    path /dev/sdb22
    start: 973344768
    end: 1081014271
    size: 107669504 ( 51.34 GiB )
  Set partition label to "WINLXSH01215" on /dev/sdb22
    mlabel :: "WINLXSH0215" -i /dev/sdb22
      Can't open /dev/sdb22: No such file or directory
      Cannot initialize '::'
      mlabel: Cannot initialize drive 

If you tell me that mlabel fails because, in the current year 2015, the partition /dev/sdb22 is beyond some 16 maximum per drive  partition numbers I am going to scream <g>.

Can we please get this fixed ?

I do very much appreciate the free GParted software and have donated to its maintenance in the past at least once.

2 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Error when changing partition label

Thank you for providing the gparted_details.htm log file in your post.

From the output it certainly looks like the device path /dev/sdb22 does not exist for the partition.

Would you be able to try booting GParted Live and then post the output from the following command to see if partitions above 16 are indeed created?

ls -l /dev/sdb*

3 Reply by eldiener

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Re: Error when changing partition label

The output from ls -l /dev/sdb* is:

brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 16 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 17 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 26 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb10
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 27 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb11
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 28 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb12
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 29 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb13
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 30 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb14
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 31 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb15
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 259, 28 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb16
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 259, 29 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb17
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 259, 30 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb18
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 259, 31 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb19
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 18 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb2
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 259, 32 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb20
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 259, 33 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb21
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 259, 34 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb22
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 259, 35 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb23
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 19 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb3
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 20 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb4
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 21 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb5
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 22 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb6
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 23 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb7
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 24 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb8
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 25 Feb 16 17:47 /dev/sdb9

4 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Error when changing partition label

It certainly looks like more than 16 partitions are recognized by the operating system and have device paths created.

Do other operations like "Partition -> Check" work on /dev/sdb22?

The answer to that will help to determine the scope of the problem.

5 Reply by eldiener (edited by eldiener 2015-02-20 00:13:27)

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Re: Error when changing partition label

The output from doing a check on /dev/sdb22:

Check and repair file system (fat32) on /dev/sdb22
  calibrate /dev/sdb22
    path: /dev/sdb22
    start: 973344768
    end: 1081014271
    size: 107669504 (51.34 GiB)
  check file system on /dev/sdb22 for errors and (if possible) fix them
    fsck.fat -a -w -v /dev/sdb22
      fsck.fat 3.0.27 (2014-11-12)
      open: No such file or directory

6 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Error when changing partition label

Hmm... those results are not at all what I expected.  It appears that even the fsck.fat command cannot find the /dev/sdb22 partition.

Can you try running the fsck.fat command from a terminal window?

sudo fsck.fat -a -w -v /dev/sdb22

This willl help to isolate if GParted is involved or not.

7 Reply by eldiener

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Re: Error when changing partition label

The output from 'sudo fsck.fat -a -w -v /dev/sdb22' from a terminal window showed that it worked and the partition was successfully checked. So the problem is something having to do with working with /dev/sdb22 from within GParted.

8 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Error when changing partition label

That is not at all what I expected, and I'm a bit confused.

'Just to confirm, did you run 'sudo fsck.fat -a -w -v /dev/sdb22' from a terminal window when booted in GParted Live?

9 Reply by eldiener

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Re: Error when changing partition label

Yes I ran 'sudo fsck.fat -a -w -v /dev/sdb22' from a terminal window when booted in GParted Live. It worked completely. Yet when I try to check the same partition from the GParted application it gave the error I previously reported. Is it possibly that running GParted does not give me sudo priveleges for some reason ? I notice when I report the error above the command that us reported to fail with 'open: No such file or directory' is given as 'fsck.fat -a -w -v /dev/sdb22' whereas the command that succeeds from the terminal windows has 'sudo' to begin it.

10 Reply by mfleetwo

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Re: Error when changing partition label

I tried to recreate this but just found GParted Live CD 0.21.0-1-i586 worked.

I booted a VirtualBox virtual machine with GParted Live CD.  Partitioned a drive with 22 MSDOS partitions and created, checked and relabelled a FAT32 file system in partition 22.  Partitioned the drive with 22 GPT partitions and created, checked and relabelled a FAT32 file system in partition 22.  Also copied a FAT32 file system to new partition 23 on the GPT drive.  All worked successfully.  Therefore I was unable to re-create this fault.

11 Reply by eldiener

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Re: Error when changing partition label

I am using gparted-live-0.21.0-1-amd64 if that makes any difference.

12 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Error when changing partition label

The architecture should not make a difference (for example i586 versus amd64).

@eldiener, would you be able to try using GParted Live 0.21.0-1-i586?

13 Reply by eldiener

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Re: Error when changing partition label

I tried using GParted Live 0.21.0-1-i586 and, surprise, everything worked perfectly ! So the problem does have something to do with the x64 version versus the i586 version. I do have a 64-bit computer using the AMD Phenom 9950 Agena Quad-Core processor. I did use the in-memory version of both the i586 and x64 versions. I will do a memtest to check my memory.

14 Reply by eldiener

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Re: Error when changing partition label

I ran memtest++ and no errors occurred running a full cycle of tests so the problem must lie somewhere in your x64 version of GParted Live for the situation I reported. At least I know that the i586 version does work for what I need to do when I copy a FAT32 partition for backup and then change the backup label to my own name for the backup.

Thanks as always for your free software and its functionality.

15 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Error when changing partition label

@eldiener, could you check the MD5SUM of your downloaded ...-amd64.iso file, and compare it with the value posted for the checksums?

If these values do not match, then there is likely a problem with corruption in the downloaded file.

16 Reply by eldiener

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Re: Error when changing partition label

The checksums all match correctly.

What I discovered with the x64 version is that when I use the default boot settings checking /dev/sdb22 works correctly but when I boot with the in-memory option, which is what I had always been doing, checking /dev/sdb22 gives the error reported in my original post on this thread.

17 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Error when changing partition label

Thanks for the extra testing eldiener, and discovering the problem only occurs with amd64 version when booted with the in-memory option.

I wonder if the system is encountering a low RAM situation (the in-memory option requires much more RAM).

How much RAM do you have installed in your computer?

18 Reply by eldiener

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Re: Error when changing partition label

I have 8 GB on my computer. That seems enough that a low RAM situation would not be the case.

19 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Error when changing partition label

That would be more than sufficient.  I've no idea why the amd64 version would not work for you when booted into RAM.

20 Reply by eldiener

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Re: Error when changing partition label

I am a programmer myself. If you cannot duplicate the situation it is understandable that it cannot be fixed. If you ever need more information about the situation which fails, feel free to ask for it.

I know the default bootup option works, rather than the in-memory option, so I will use that. I used the in-memory option because I logically assumed that the in-memory option would lead to slightly faster execution. But of course I would rather have something work than not <g> than execute slightly faster.

21 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Error when changing partition label

Thanks for your offer of further help if needed.

This issue is relatively small in the bigger scheme of things.  And with many more pressing issues to deal with, I do not plan to work on this further.

My guess is that the problem is related to some upstream package in Debian Live.