slow reformatting of 256MB SD to ext2

[Anonymous]

There were symbloic link creation errors when installing IPK which resulted in IPK not being installed.

So I started to reformat the SD (Sandisk 256MB) following the instructions I found here: http://eyrich.net/people/eyrichjf/zaurus/

It\'s almost an hour & it\'s still at about 50% complete - the Kconsole says \"Writing inode tables 959/2077\" ...

Am I doing something wrong?

[Anonymous]

Looks like the formatting is slow.  First time it crashed(?) because when I came back to the SL5500 it had closed the Kconsole from where I excuted the mkfs.ext2.  Second time, it too was slow but it completely --- with an error.  It said done on \"inode table\" but had a message following that said something about getting a \"short read\" while trying to put /root on the SD.

I must be doing something wrong.  The SD card also has a file disca.rde & I don\'t seem to be able to wwrite to it anyways (installing an IPK to SD through the Package fails).

[lardman]

Did you fdisk it? An hour seems like a very long time to me. It takes about 1 minute to do my 256Mb CF card.


Si

[Anonymous]

Yes, I think fdisk was successful.  Here\'s the steps:

- fdisk SD from my PC only to delete the vfat partition (Windoze 98)
- install fdisk IPK to OZ 3.3.6pre1 & fdisk SD
- try #1 mkfs results in crash(?) of Kconsole
- try #2 mkfd results in error - inode table done but something about short read when writing /root to SD
- lotsa \"?\" 0 byte files & one big disca.rde file
- when testing (I.E. isntall IPK to SD) it says something about can\'t write so try to chmod but the command doesn\'t take

I must be doing something wrong and/or skipping a step.  Maybe the partition is not right?  I thought I chose Linux when running fdisk.  When running mkfs, twice, they both seem to progress ...

[lardman]

Check that when you ran fdisk you did:

fdisk /dev/mmcda

not

fdisk /dev/mmcda1 (which is wrong)

and that when you did mkfs you did:

mkfs.ext2 /dev/mmcda1

not

mkfs.ext2 /dev/mmcda (which is wrong).

Assuming you did all of this I don\'t know, but there have been issues with Sandisk SD cards (especially using ext2 for some obscure reason).

Si

[Anonymous]

Kewl, thanks for the tip.

I\'m going to retry all the way back from fdisk.

Robert

[lardman]

Step by step if you need it:

http://www.zaurususergroup.com/modules.php...20for%20newbies

Si

[cvmiller]

Step by step if you need it:

http://www.zaurususergroup.com/modules.php...20for%20newbies

Si

Nice Steps for ext2 formatting. But they don\'t work on my brand new SanDisk 256MB SD card (AR0401RF). I have sucessfull done this a while ago on a 128 MB SanDisk SD card. But this card seems to have a non-changable partition table. Using fdisk to change the partition table (to linux partition type) and then rebooting the zaurus (I am doing this all from the zaurus 5500, since it is the only machine I have with a SD slot), running fdisk -l /dev/mmcda and the old VFAT partition table is back!

Anyone see this kind of problem. Did I buy the wrong SD (manufacturer) card?

TIA

Craig...

[Joshp]

Try sshing to your zaurus.  And run: \"umount /dev/mmcda1\"
 \"fdisk /dev/mmcda\"
Delete all the partons on the sd and create new ones.  The default under linux fdisk is to create a linux natve partion.
now run \"mke2fs /dev/mmcda1\".  And change you \"/etc/fstab\" entery for your sd card so that it mounts ext2.  Then run \"mount /dev/mmcda1\".

JP

[cvmiller]

Try sshing to your zaurus.  And run: \"umount /dev/mmcda1\"
 \"fdisk /dev/mmcda\" 
Delete all the partons on the sd and create new ones.  The default under linux fdisk is to create a linux natve partion. 
now run \"mke2fs /dev/mmcda1\".  And change you \"/etc/fstab\" entery for your sd card so that it mounts ext2.  Then run \"mount /dev/mmcda1\".

JP

Thanks JP, I did all that. As I said the instructions are very good. And I have had sucess in the past with a 128MB SD card. But this 256 SanDisk card seems like it has a permenant parittion table. Using Fdisk to delete all the partitions (there is only 1) and the adding my own, using \'w\' to write the paritition table, all looks like it works. But re-reading the partition table with fdisk -l /dev/mmcda shows the old (original) partition table again.

Does anyone have a different brand of 256MB SD card that works with ext2? I\'d gladly return this one, and buy that one.

TIA,

Craig...

[Joshp]

Lexar works well, I have a 256MB sd card haven\'t had any problumes with it.  

JP

[Stubear]

You don\'t need to fdisk really, you can just mke2fs over the top of the existing partition, Linux is smart enough to check the filesyetm rather than just using whatever the partition type is. You can\'t hide a partition from Linux (unlike windoze)

Stu

[cvmiller]

You don\'t need to fdisk really, you can just mke2fs over the top of the existing partition, Linux is smart enough to check the filesyetm rather than just using whatever the partition type is. You can\'t hide a partition from Linux (unlike windoze)

Stu

Yes this worked fine with my \"replacement\" SD card, manufactured by PNY. Not sure what is up with the SanDisk card, but I hope other manufactures don\'t lock their cards to VFAT.

Thanks for all the help,

Craig...