Hello!
After researching for ages and posting to different boards I finally found here. I'll get straight to the point:

When I mount my external 3 TiB USB disk which uses GPT (because I couldn't use the whole 3TiB otherwise) with

it does so without complain, but when I navigate through some of the folders (which all _seem_ to be visible) there are no files in it.
It doesn't seem to follow a pattern, some folders with only latin names have nothing in them, some folders with nordic letters do.. so the names shouldn't have anything to do with the problem. The folders which seem to be empty are always the same though.

If I try to do the same from the console it gives:

"reading directory: input/output error"

the log at /var/log/everything.log outputs this after trying to ls:


Of course I've read the FAQ and everything. The hardware is working superb, already used multiple disk-checkers on windows (which takes almost a whole day for a 3TiB disk..).
But since I'd like to use linux more often, I _need_ that disk working.
It's an archlinux system by the way.



Thanks in advance,
Thorvaldsson

Hi,



You are using a device with 4K sectors and clusters greater than 4K, and you have hit a ten year old bug which has been reported this week for the first time....

see viewtopic.php?f=2&t=28426

Please apply the couple of patches posted there, and report again.

Regards

Jean-Pierre

Thank you for the quick reply!
I've noticed chkdsk complaining before too by the way. I didn't think these two problems would have something in common, so I didn't mention it.
I've applied your patch for ntfs-3g (ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs-2011.10.9-RC) and it works as it's supposed to. Great! (dir.c.patch15 fails with ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs-2011.4.12)
I don't know how to test the kernel driver patch though if you'd wanted me to also try it.

Currently I've only mounted the disk as read-only. Is it safe with the patched RC version to switch to full access? I wouldn't want to lose any data on it.

Best regards,
Thorvaldsson

Hi,


chkdsk should complain if you formatted your device with mkntfs. If so, please do several "chkdsk /f" until it finds no error. The other informations you posted tend to demonstrate you did not use mkntfs, but better do a chkdsk anyway.

I attach the necessary patch to mkntfs in case you need it.


The patch was indeed designed for the latest version, you may have to apply the fix manually to older ones, but it is relevant for all non-prehistoric versions.


I do not provide support for the kernel driver. Maybe Anton would be interested.


I have made my own tests by simulating 4K sectors, but I do not have the actual hardware. Also this patch is two days old, so there is no much experience about it.

I think it is safe, but take extra care and do not hesitate to check with chkdsk.

Regards

Jean-Pierre

Chkdsk was complaining every time I had mounted the internal ntfs partition on linux before. It just required another reboot to work again. Also when mounting the internal ntfs partition ntfs-3g showed a message about how it fixed something. Everything else worked, but you'd see chkdsk complaining when booting into windows.
This stopped now and everything works great. I did not use mkntfs, just the standard windows tools.
But since the internal disk is an older common one, I guess this has nothing to do with the applied patch, but rather with the RC I'm now using.
If you'd like any information about this apparently with the RC fixed problem just tell me how to obtain it.
Regards,
Thorvaldsson

Hi,


That is not acceptable. Were you using a very old ntfs-3g version ? If this happens again with no apparent reason, please report (with the logs from chkdsk and ntfs-3g, see below).

Do you mean you have the error with a traditional disk and with the RC and with or without the recent patch ? No such error is known with the RC, if there is one, it has to be fixed before the official release.

Not sure to understand what you mean, but if the error occurs with a recent version, I may like to start with the error logged by ntfs-3g (in the system log, such as /var/log/messages but depends on the distribution), and the chkdsk log (see http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/window ... 28554.html), and some information about the actions which may have triggered the errors.

Regards

Jean-Pierre

The chkdsk error occured with a traditional disk with an old version of ntfs-3g.
I didn't test the RC version unpatched.
The RC version with your patch applied works as it's supposed to so far. (no chkdsk error + the modern disk works too)

Everything seems to be fixed in the RC(+patch because I haven't tested it unpatched.)
I just thought you might wanted some logs etc. of my specific hardware after it's all working now for development purposes.

Regards,
Thorvaldsson

Hi,


Fine.

Thank you for the proposal. No need at the moment, but I take note of the offer in case of later need.

Regards

Jean-Pierre