Parted assertion failure

[Wenzhuo Zhang]

Binary package hint: parted

I bought a new Seagate 320G IDE drive last weekend, and installed it in my home desktop last night. I booted into the Edgy Desktop CD to create partitions and to migrate data. Before going to bed last night, I typed the following command to copy two ext3 partitions to the new drive:

    # time parted -s /dev/hda cp /dev/hde 5 3 && time parted -s /dev/hda cp /dev/hde 6 4

I found this morning that parted failed because of many assertion failures:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... ...
Assertion (block < EXT2_SUPER_BLOCKS_COUNT(fs->sb)) at ../../../../libparted/fs/ext2/ext2.h:226 in function ext2_is_data_block() failed.

Warning: Block 50266641 shouldn't have been marked (0, 0)!
Error: Attempt to read sectors -8--1 outside of partition on /dev/hda.

You found a bug in GNU Parted! Here's what you have to do:

Don't panic! The bug has most likely not affected any of your data.
Help us to fix this bug by doing the following:

Check whether the bug has already been fixed by checking
the last version of GNU Parted that you can find at:

        http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/parted/

Please check this version prior to bug reporting.

If this has not been fixed yet or if you don't know how to check,
please visit the GNU Parted website:

        http://www.gnu.org/software/parted

for further information.

Your report should contain the version of this release (1.7.1)
along with the error message below, the output of

        parted DEVICE unit co print unit s print

and additional information about your setup you consider important.

Error: SEGV_MAPERR (Address not mapped to object)Aborted (core dumped)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here are the partition layouts:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
root@ubuntu:~# parted /dev/hda unit co print unit s print
Disk /dev/hda: 320GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 32.3kB 64.4GB 64.4GB primary ntfs boot
 2 64.4GB 65.5GB 1053MB primary linux-swap
 3 65.5GB 77.5GB 12.0GB primary ext3
 4 77.5GB 320GB 243GB primary ext3

Disk /dev/hda: 625142447s
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 63s 125837144s 125837082s primary ntfs boot
 2 125837145s 127893464s 2056320s primary linux-swap
 3 127893465s 151348364s 23454900s primary ext3
 4 151348365s 625137344s 473788980s primary ext3

root@ubuntu:~# parted /dev/hde unit co print unit s print
Disk /dev/hde: 320GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 32.3kB 85.9GB 85.9GB primary ntfs boot
 2 85.9GB 118GB 32.2GB primary ext3
 3 118GB 119GB 543MB primary linux-swap
 4 119GB 320GB 201GB extended
 5 119GB 127GB 8595MB logical ext3
 6 127GB 320GB 193GB logical ext3

Disk /dev/hde: 625142447s
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 63s 167766794s 167766732s primary ntfs boot
 2 167766795s 230677334s 62910540s primary ext3
 3 230677335s 231737624s 1060290s primary linux-swap
 4 231737625s 625137344s 393399720s extended
 5 231737688s 248525549s 16787862s logical ext3
 6 248525613s 625137344s 376611732s logical ext3
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll try parted-1.8.6 later.

[Wenzhuo Zhang (wenzhuo)]

parted-1.8.6 also failed when copying the bigger partition (/dev/hde6). It failed with the same error messages, but without the detailed help information. On the contrary to my assumption, the ext3 resizing code of GNU parted is still EXPERIMENTAL, as it warns in interactive mode. I was too quick to file the bug report. Please close it for me.

I am falling back to the good old ways to copy ext3 partitions:

1. When I feel necessary to retain meta information or if the filesystem is almost full, just use dd + resize2fs.

2. "cp -avx source/* destination" or "rsync -avx source/ destination/"

3. Commercial software, like BootIt NG

[Wenzhuo Zhang (wenzhuo)]

well, I think parted should not try to resize ext3 partitions when its code is still experimental. Even when it's beta quality, it should provide an option to disable automatic filesystem resizing.

[YoBoY (yoboy-leguesh)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue for you. Can you try with the latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[YoBoY (yoboy-leguesh)]

 We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!