Ext2-fs: group descriptors corrupted!

[timba35]

Hi all,

I'm relatively new to the linux game, and I just finished setting up a debian box. Just to have a backup, I'm trying to copy each partition into an image file on a USB hard drive.

When I plug in the USB drive, it show's up under computer. When I right click and tell it to mount, i get the following error message:

libhal-storage.c 1401:info: called libhal_free_dbus_error but dbuserror was not set.
process 3233: applications must not close shared connections - see dbus_connection_close() docs. this is a bug in the application
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad suberblock on /dev/sda1 - missing codepage or other error
in some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so
error: could not execute pmount

So I went and checked dmesg | tail and got the following:
Ext2-fs: group descriptors corrupted!
SCSI device sda:-byte hdwr sectors (625142448 512-byte hdwr sectors (320073MB)
sda: write protect is off
sda: mode sense: 17 00 00 00
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
sda: sda1
Ext2-fs error (device sda1): ext2_check_descriptors: Block bitmap for group 53 not in group (block 0)!
Ext2-fs: group descriptors corrupted!

I do an fdisk -l and i can see my primary drive with it's partitions hdd, hdd1, hdd2, hdd5, hdd6 and i can see the usb drive listed as sda with it's partition sda1. I figured that since it sounded like partition was corrupted, I would remove it and add a new one. I did an fdisk /dev/sda used the 'd' command to remove the partition and then wrote the change. I fdisk'd again added a new partition that took up the entire drive with the option 83 Linux type. I still get the error that I am unable to mount.

The USB device doesn't show up in the /media directory either.

Thoughts or comments?

[lugoteehalt]

Not an expert. Get the impression the USB hard drive was called /dev/sda and it had one partition on it called sda1. Have you destroyed that partition with fdisk, so it does not have any partitions anymore? Would have thought you need at least one partition on it so you'll have to make some.

Presumably you cannot mount the partition *images* (what this mean - images?) because the USB disk is not like your other disk in that there was only one partition on it.

The usual way to back up partitions would be to use the program 'partimage'. This, slightly odd, program makes an image of a partion without any of the unused areas of the disk, it can compress it if you wish. To restore the partition should it get damaged use partimage in restore mode.

At a quess the only way to look at the backup partitions as if they were ordinary partitions would be to use a loop device.

[timba35]

By images, I mean I would be using the dd command to create an image file that would have each partition in the file.
I would use something similar to:

dd if=/dev/hdd1 of=/media/usbdisk/hdd1Image.img
dd if=/dev/hdd2 of=/media/usbdisk/hdd2Image.img
dd if=/dev/hdd5 of=/media/usbdisk/hdd5Image.img
dd if=/dev/hdd6 of=/media/usbdisk/hdd6Image.img

That, if i understand correctly, would duplicate each of the four partitions as image files onto my usb hard drive. However, without the /usbdisk showing up in media i'm SOL.

Really, I just want to format the USB HD and copy those image files to it. It just won't show.

[lugoteehalt]

Sorry about delay: got spam filtered - hope you've fixed it by this time.

'83 Linux type' never heard of this, ext3 file system type is what you might expect.

If the USB hd had previously been used on Windows why would it have an ext2 fs? ext2 is a slightly out of date, but still perfectly usuable Linux fs; it is not journalled whereas ext3 is.

Parted is a more sophisticated partitioning tool than fdisk.

Perhaps put several partitions on USB drive, everything can use vfat, and an ext3 one and so on.

By media directory you mean
$ ls /media
produces nothing about it? It wouldn't if it's not mounted.

Could try mounting it manually:
# mount -t auto /device/name /mount/point/in/directory/tree

What does /etc/fstab contain?

What message is printed on terminal when it's plugged in?