Re: XFS errors on 3TB HDD that is identified of size 2TB only

Jay Ashworth
2013-07-15T23:59:43Z

> From: "Matthias Schniedermeyer" <ms@citd.de>

> > Stop! Wait a minute! Stop it, boy!
> >
> > (Sorry; Meat Loaf flashback. :-)
> >
> > You're looking at that partition table with fdisk, *which doesn't
> > understand
> > GPT partition tables*; it's amazing it didn't complain louder.
>
> It does. At least the version i got does:
>
> ...
> WARNING: The size of this disk is 3.0 TB (3000592982016 bytes).
> DOS partition table format can not be used on drives for volumes
> larger than (2199023255040 bytes) for 512-byte sectors. Use parted(1)
> and GUID partition table format (GPT).
> ...

You're reading it wrong. That's the fdisk which you tell me understands
GPT tables *telling you it does not*.

> And that's not even the most recent version:
> fdisk -v
> fdisk (util-linux 2.20.1)
>
> But in the OP-Case the kernel appeared to reported the disc as 2TB,
> which could be seen in the fdisk output.

fdisk is not guaranteed to be using a long enough variable there to be
able to report the drive size correctly.

TTBOMK, *nothing* other than parted presently knows how to create
and modify GPT partition tables.

Except, apparently, for a program with the *singularly* poorly chosen
name of "GPT Fdisk":

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gptfdisk/

I know, that sounds like a *really good* name. I've been doing tech
support for 30 years; trust me, it's about the worst imaginable name. :-}