Bug 74596 – fdisk fails to write label on a scsi disk

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED NEEDINFO

[Description Riccardo 2004-12-16 00:32:29 UTC]

I have a Seagate st1480N disk, with sun roms:
  Vendor: SEAGATE   Model: ST1480   SUN0424  Rev: 7516
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02

running fdisk on this disk fails because on exit nothing is apparently written (the disk led shows activity): reentering fdisk shows an invalid or the old disk label. I tried both automatic disk label, a custom disklabel with auto or correct (manufacturer's) values. No difference.

I tried
- attaching the step to anther computer running OpenBSD. There I could disklabel and format the disk w/o problems
- rebooting after fdisk exited without errors
- dd'ing the first sector to zero. This removed the OpenBSD label but still I couldn't create a new one

finally, since I have another almost identical disk (same model, slightly older revision, not sun roms) I dd'd the first sector from that one to this disk. Now disklabel sees it. I formatted the disk and can use it flawlessy.
I conclude so the problem is fdisk related since dd can access the first sector without problems. But I might be wrong.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
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[Comment 1 Gustavo Zacarias (RETIRED) 2005-01-03 14:33:13 UTC]

did you try modifying the partitions after creating the sun disklabel with fdisk?
because it behaves the way you mention.
just try erasing the swap partition or some other, re-create it and write.

[Comment 2 SpanKY 2005-01-09 19:36:39 UTC]

well, you neglected to mention what version of util-linux you're using ... and you neglected to provide `emerge info`

please re-open once you've done both of these things, and you've responded to Gustavo's question ...

if his suggestion does not fix your issue, could you try with latest util-linux ? (meaning 2.12p)

[Comment 3 SpanKY 2005-01-09 19:36:54 UTC]

-> we feedback