https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365 User casualprogrammer@yahoo.com added comment https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365#c1 --- Comment #1 from Casual J. Programmer 2008-02-23 10:24:11 MST --- After googling for "unknown partition table" it turns out that quite a few people are mislead to believe something is wrong with their media. A similar request as this one can be found at http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=463758 -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365 User casualprogrammer@yahoo.com added comment https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365#c3 Casual J. Programmer changed: What |Removed |Added ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Status|NEEDINFO |NEW Info Provider|casualprogrammer@yahoo.com | --- Comment #3 from Casual J. Programmer 2008-02-25 03:06:24 MST --- Bug 299704 comment #3, Bug 300894 comment #0 -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365 User fseidel@novell.com added comment https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365#c5 Frank Seidel changed: What |Removed |Added ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CC| |fseidel@novell.com --- Comment #5 from Frank Seidel 2008-02-25 03:47:49 MST --- After taking a closer look it seems like initially this was the case as the kernel reported "unable to read partition table" (but which probably doesn't sound much better to users anyway) in the case of no partition table. It seems like the upstream commit 57881dd9df40b76dc7fc6a0d13fd75f337accb32 (by suzuki@in.ibm.com on 2006-12-06) made this part unreachable. -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365 User fseidel@novell.com added comment https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365#c6 Frank Seidel changed: What |Removed |Added ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- AssignedTo|kernel-maintainers@forge.provo.novell.com |fseidel@novell.com --- Comment #6 from Frank Seidel 2008-02-27 08:16:34 MST --- No, my previous note was wrong. On a correct media with no partition table nothing is mentioned at all. The message you are observing (investigated the mbrs of you from bug #299704) shows that there are the msdos label magic bytes (offset 510 and 511) set correctly, but on verifying if bootable indicator is set correctly (to 0 or 0x80) it only finds garbage at 0x1be. So, it seems your mbr is not only without a partition table but also has a abnormal structure. I verified (with multiple medias, formated via mkfs.vfat and from windows (vista)) and never got a "unknown partition table" message. -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365 User casualprogrammer@yahoo.com added comment https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365#c8 Casual J. Programmer changed: What |Removed |Added ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Status|RESOLVED |REOPENED Resolution|INVALID | --- Comment #8 from Casual J. Programmer 2008-02-27 08:35:00 MST --- As the message "unknown partition table" just references an absent partition table it has nothing to do with "garbage at 0x1be" nor does it hint to that end. If "garbage at 0x1be" is worth investigating, it should be worth it's own (error)message then. The way you point it out makes the message even more obscure. So why this should be "adequate" iyho is beyond my intellectual capacities. Please come up with something reasonable. Besides: all the media were formatted with (my copy of) Windows XP professional. So there might be some XP magic code here. Also XP will report a Diskette or MMC with partition table as "not formatted" and refuse to touch it. -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365 User fseidel@novell.com added comment https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365#c10 --- Comment #10 from Frank Seidel 2008-02-27 14:07:25 MST --- Created an attachment (id=197515) --> (https://bugzilla.novell.com/attachment.cgi?id=197515) possible fix for detection of not partitioned fat medias this is just a rough first try (but which is tested and works here without problems) -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365 User casualprogrammer@yahoo.com added comment https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365#c14 --- Comment #14 from Casual J. Programmer 2008-02-28 05:49:40 MST --- Not sure what I am missing: fs/partitions/msdos.c: In function ‘msdos_partition’: fs/partitions/msdos.c:446: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type fs/partitions/msdos.c:446: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type fs/partitions/msdos.c:446: error: implicit declaration of function ‘FAT_VALID_MEDIA’ fs/partitions/msdos.c:446: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type make[2]: *** [fs/partitions/msdos.o] Error 1 make[1]: *** [fs/partitions] Error 2 make: *** [fs] Error 2 /* * Now that the 55aa signature is present, this is probably * either the boot sector of a FAT filesystem or a DOS-type * partition table. Reject this in case the boot indicator * is not 0 or 0x80. */ fb = (struct fat_boot_sector *) data; 446 if (fb->reserved && fb->fats && FAT_VALID_MEDIA(fb->media)) { printk("\n"); put_dev_sector(sect); return 1; } p = (struct partition *) (data + 0x1be); for (slot = 1; slot <= 4; slot++, p++) { if (p->boot_ind != 0 && p->boot_ind != 0x80) { put_dev_sector(sect); return 0; } } -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365 User casualprogrammer@yahoo.com added comment https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365#c16 --- Comment #16 from Casual J. Programmer 2008-02-28 08:11:16 MST --- ".. as most probably its first hunk (the include of linux/msdos_fs.h) is missing." How very true :-( -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365 User fseidel@novell.com added comment https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365#c18 --- Comment #18 from Frank Seidel 2008-03-03 04:00:23 MST --- btw this will only compile with mm kernel tree currently as it requires another patch fixing the the FAT_VALID_MEDIA macro there -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365 User kpunjabi@ubicom.com added comment https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365#c20 Kunal Punjabi changed: What |Removed |Added ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CC| |kpunjabi@ubicom.com --- Comment #20 from Kunal Punjabi 2009-02-03 19:20:28 MST --- (In reply to comment #19)

commited patch v3 (besides a Acked-by: OGAWA Hirofumi and a small comment identical to v2) to cvs

Hi Frank, I don't see your patch in the kernel version 2.6.28 linux-2.6.x\fs\partitions\msdos.c Without the patch, I was seeing a very similar problem. Certain valid FAT formatted USB drives/media (Lexar, Kingston Traveldrives) were not being detected by Linux and were causing an "unknown partition table" message even though the media is valid (can be accessed via XP) and/or has no partition table. Has the patch either been approved, checked in or committed? Thanks. -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365 User fseidel@novell.com added comment https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=364365#c22 --- Comment #22 from Frank Seidel 2009-02-04 04:35:42 MST --- Ok, i just checked linus git tree and found it. So it is in: My patch is in commit 0607fd02587a6b4b086dc746d63123c1f284db68 from April 28th 2008. commit 0607fd02587a6b4b086dc746d63123c1f284db68 Author: Frank Seidel Date: Mon Apr 28 02:16:31 2008 -0700 fat: detect media without partition table correctly I received a complaint that some FAT formated medias (e.g. sd memory cards) trigger a "unknown partition table" message even though there is no partition table and they work correctly, while in general (when e.g. formated with mkdosfs or even Windows Vista) this message is not shown. Currently this seems only to happen when the medias get formatted with Windows XP (and possibly Win 2000). Then the boot indicator byte contains garbage (part of text message) and so do the other parts checked by msdos_paritition which then later triggers this message. References: novell bug #364365 Most fat formatted media without partition table contains zeros in the boot indication and the other tested bytes and so falls through the checks in msdos_partition, leading it to return with 1 (all is fine). But some (e.g. WinXP formatted) fat fomated medias don't use boot_ind and so the check fails and causes a "unkown partition table" warning eventhough there is none and everything would be fine. This additional check directly verifies if there is a fat formatted medium without a partition table. Signed-off-by: Frank Seidel Cc: Andreas Dilger Acked-by: OGAWA Hirofumi Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.