Arch Linux

rado84

Banned

From: Sofia, Bulgaria

Registered: 2019-05-12

Posts: 135

mkfs.xfs /dev/nameX resets partition table instead of making an XFS fs

I decided to reinstall arch bc some programs got their deps messed up (thanks to Nate Graham and others). But since recently the old SSD had started dying, I bought a new one and replaced it. What I'm about to describe NEVER happened when I was using the old SSD!
So, after executing mkfs.xfs /dev/sdc1, instead of actually creating the fs, blkid showed only /dev/sdc - no number for the partition! So I rebooted and ran a Live DVD of Mint which comes with GParted. It turned out mkfs.xfs had reset the partition table to nothing (it used to be MS-DOS) and I had to recreate it again, recreate the XFS fs AND recover MBR using lilo and finally restore the backup from an image in order to have any working OS at all!
IDK why you bother releasing new ISOs every month when nothing is ever updated and nothing works, apparently - you replace one storage and everything goes to hell.

When I bought this new SSD, I had other storage related problems inside a running Arch but I fixed them by updating linux-firmware with the latest, I think the version is linux-firmware-20231110.74158e7a-1-any. And the problems disappeared. I'm thinking/hoping that if you release a new ISO (newer than archlinux-2023.12.01-x86_64.iso) with linux-firmware in it updated with the November version, this problem will disappear.

If it matters, the old storage was Corsair 200LE 120GB, the current one is KINGSTON SKC6002.

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Core i7-4770, GTX 1660 Ti, 32 GB RAM, Arch 6.x LTS, Cinnamon 5.2.7, GDM

ectospasm

Member

Registered: 2015-08-28

Posts: 273

Re: mkfs.xfs /dev/nameX resets partition table instead of making an XFS fs

Is there a reason why you're using XFS and not a better maintained filesystem?  The XFS maintainer stepped down in August, 2023.  I don't know the current status of XFS, but you likely ran across a bug in mkfs.xfs.

And if you're installing Arch fresh on a new SSD, why go with an MBR/DOS partition table, and not GPT?  Unless you have an old BIOS (not UEFI) system, it makes no sense to have a fresh Arch installation with the old partition table.  But you can read the comparison on the Arch wiki and decide for yourself.  This is merely a suggestion.

frostschutz

Member

Registered: 2013-11-15

Posts: 1,425

Re: mkfs.xfs /dev/nameX resets partition table instead of making an XFS fs

this shouldn't happen, unless you run mkfs on /dev/sdc instead of /dev/sdc1 (or alternatively you partitioned sdc1 instead of sdc)

just in case also check ls -l /dev/sdc* major,minor numbers. it's possible in theory (but very unlikely in practice) that the device node was created incorrectly so sdc1 is really not sdc1 but another device

nl6720

The Evil Wiki Admin

Registered: 2016-07-02

Posts: 620

Re: mkfs.xfs /dev/nameX resets partition table instead of making an XFS fs

Is there a reason why you're using XFS and not a better maintained filesystem?  The XFS maintainer stepped down in August, 2023

He only stepped down from the maintainer role, but still remains a developer.

XFS is far from being unmaintained, it regularly gets new features. And AFAIK it's the only non-COW file system that supports reflinks.