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computing:storage:disk_in_use

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Disk in Use

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=242935

http://diehealthy.org/linux/dmraids-metadata-mdadm

http://www.sturge.ca/?p=108

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=667317

:!: This commonly occurs after using a drive in BIOS-based RAID or when re-using a drive that was previosly used in the older dmraid-style software RAID.

When preparing a disk or partition for use on Linux, you may see an error such as:

/dev/sda1 is apparently in use by the system; will not make a filesystem here!
  1. Check if the filesystem is already mounted
    • mount
    • cat /etc/mtab
  2. Check if LVM is involved
    • pvs
    • vgs
    • lvs
  3. Check if Linux software RAID is involved
    • dmsetup status
    • dmsetup ls
    • dmraid -r

Fix the Problem

Carefully try one of these options based on what you found (in no particular order):

  • dmsetup remove xxxxxxxx
  • dmraid -r -E
  • dmraid -r -E -f [pdc,nvidia]
  • dmraid -r -E /dev/sd[a,b,c...]
computing/storage/disk_in_use.1336583795.txt.gz · Last modified: 2012/05/09 11:16 by gcooper