192 votes

How can I resize an ext root partition at runtime?

An easier solution - use growpart <device> <partition>: growpart /dev/xvda 1 # Grows the partition; note the space resize2fs /dev/xvda1 # Grows the filesystem As always, back up your ...
STRML's user avatar
  • 2,023
56 votes
Accepted

How do I resize an ext4 partition beyond the 16TB limit?

With the option -O 64bit (enabled by default in filesystems created today), ext file systems can span 1024 PiB instead of just 16 TiB volumes. You can upgrade your old filesystem to activate this ...
anx's user avatar
  • 2,348
30 votes
Accepted

EXT4-fs error after Ubuntu 17.04 upgrade

As pointed out in a comment by Elder Geek, this is due to a known bug. From the bug report: APST support just landed in the latest Zesty kernel (4.10.0-14.16) as part of https://bugs.launchpad....
Ben B's user avatar
  • 681
28 votes
Accepted

Dropbox: ext4 isn't ext4

There are three things in total that Dropbox requires to continue working on Linux, and only one is properly documented. What I'm summarising here worked for Dropbox 59.4.93 on Ubuntu 18.04.1 (amd64). ...
Florian Echtler's user avatar
26 votes

After a power failure, unable to mount the drive "Get a newer version of e2fsck"

I had the same problem and it took me some time to fix it, without formatting :) Just follow this hint: e2fsck: Get a newer version of e2fsck! You need to download the latest version of e2fsck, ...
Max's user avatar
  • 371
23 votes

How do I create and tune an ext4 partition from the command-line?

Using parted Below the instructions to create a new ext4 partition on a new hard drive with parted (tested on Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS x64). parted supports GUID Partition Table (GPT) and subsequently can ...
Franck Dernoncourt's user avatar
20 votes
Accepted

Dropbox on a dual-boot machine

Q. Can this situation be solved? Nope. Which probably leads to ... Q. Why not? The problem comes down to how Dropbox relies on the journaling mechanism of the file system to know when a file has been ...
matigo's user avatar
  • 22.1k
18 votes
Accepted

Why does Ubuntu use ext4 by default?

Ubuntu did not "pick" ext4. Debian did. Mark Shuttleworth's original vision was to create a not-quite-fork of Debian that could sign contracts, collect revenue, and hire engineers. A ...
user535733's user avatar
  • 62.1k
17 votes

How do I create an encrypted filesystem inside a file?

Follow next steps to create an encrypted file with filesystem inside: 1. The faster way to create file of given size is: fallocate -l 128M /path/to/file 2. Create LUKS (Linux Unified Key Setup) ...
mixel's user avatar
  • 291
17 votes

How can I resize an ext root partition at runtime?

Yes, you can shrink/move/grow an online root partition without any reboots (nor livecd, nor usbkey): consult this answer. It's very well written and easy to follow, although quite long and a little ...
vaab's user avatar
  • 1,084
15 votes

After a power failure, unable to mount the drive "Get a newer version of e2fsck"

metadata_csum stands for “Metadata Checksums” which is available for Ext4 file systems since Linux 3.6 but isn't supported by the file system tools until v1.43: Support for checksums is sitting in ...
David Foerster's user avatar
15 votes

How can I prevent Windows 10 from corrupting the ext4 superblock every time?

I have the same issue and for me it seems to be the Windows 10 ext2fsd file system driver. Maybe for you too? When I uninstall ext2fsd (version 0.68) I can start Windows 10 as often as I want and the ...
hempel's user avatar
  • 151
15 votes
Accepted

How can I prevent Windows 10 from corrupting the ext4 superblock every time?

I have done some research and it seems that since ext2fsprogs 1.43 (Ubuntu 16.10), the 64bit and the metadata_csum features are enabled when a new ext4 filesystem is created. I did a fresh install of ...
hempel's user avatar
  • 166
12 votes

How can I completely defragment ext4 filesystem

I want all my files in an ext4 filesystem not fragmented because of reasons. While there are legitimate reasons to defrag, none require every single file to be defragged and contiguous. The main ...
xiota's user avatar
  • 4,839
11 votes

Which tool to backup an ext4 partition?

Modern versions of e2image (1.42.7 or later) allow efficient cloning/backing up of Ext2/3/4 partitions from the command line. e2image -ar /dev/sdaX ~/sdaX.img -a ensures that file data, and not just ...
mwfearnley's user avatar
  • 3,317
11 votes

How can I resize an ext root partition at runtime?

I would like to make an extension on the answer of @Søren Løvborg: extending the partition with a swap partition present. First the layout of the disk after extending it: $sudo parted /dev/sda 'unit s ...
wouter205's user avatar
  • 1,161
11 votes

df -h - Used space + Avail Free space is less than the Total size of /home

This question is really about interpreting the output of the df command, which is famously confusing and if you Google it, you'll see many questions about df. How to interpret df's output Size in df's ...
F1Linux's user avatar
  • 1,066
10 votes

Dropbox on a dual-boot machine

This used to work, but as the other answer says, Dropbox blocks file systems they do not want to support. At the time they made this change, I also required dual booting, and moved away from Dropbox. ...
jdm's user avatar
  • 2,327
9 votes
Accepted

fsck shows ext4 file system errors, but only when booting from system partition

If you force a file system check on an ext4 file system that is currently mounted in r/w-mode using fsck -nf <filesystem>, you will always get error messages like the ones you posted (corrupted ...
Sebastian Stark's user avatar
9 votes
Accepted

Just format HDD in ext4, cannot create any folder

It looks like the partition you're talking of is /dev/sda1, and it is mounted at /media/sassari74/eaae11b1-a939-4674-a5a7-6e0357, so do: sudo chown $USER /media/sassari74/eaae11b1-a939-4674-a5a7-...
muru's user avatar
  • 198k
9 votes

Formatting an ext4 partition with a 16KB block, possible?

You need to use mkfs.ext4 with -C 16384 and also -O bigalloc. From man mkfs.ext4: -C cluster-size Specify the size of cluster in bytes for filesystems using the bigalloc feature. Valid ...
GreenReaper's user avatar
8 votes
Accepted

Undeletable directory in lost+found

One possibility is the immutable flag in the case of ext filesystem. See output of lsattr command. If there is i present, it can be removed with chattr -i filename A file with the 'i' attribute ...
J.J. Hakala's user avatar
8 votes
Accepted

Very slow write rate from ext4 to NTFS

I have founded a solution: I’ve changed the sync to async in this /etc/fstab line that I used to tell Ubuntu to auto-mount the disk: UUID=<uuid> <pathtomount> <file system> uid=<...
Jacob's user avatar
  • 321
8 votes
Accepted

Windows 10 corrupts Ubuntu 18.04 partitions

In a dual boot configuration with Windows and Ubuntu, Ubuntu can easily read Windows NTFS partitions/disks, however, when booted into Windows, Windows can't natively read/mount Ubuntu ext[2-4] ...
heynnema's user avatar
  • 70.6k
8 votes
Accepted

Dropbox is asking me to change location to Ext4

Dropbox doesn't support eCryptfs. As per this official documentation Note: ecryptfs is not supported, but Dropbox will continue to sync with supported file systems that are encrypted via full disk ...
pomsky's user avatar
  • 68.4k
8 votes

What is the journal?

Does someone knows what journal is? Part of a modern day filesystem is a feature called "journaling". We use "ext4" as a filesystem. (ext3, ext2 are older versions. NTFS is a Microsoft equivalent.) ...
Rinzwind's user avatar
  • 299k
7 votes

Should I use btrfs or Ext4 for my SSD?

For those stumbling on this question in 2016... Use ext4. I tried btrfs and the difference is substantial. Over a 10-day period write IOs to ext4 amounted to 17,800 sectors. Btrfs? 490,400 sectors....
wkirk's user avatar
  • 71
7 votes

Can I disable updatedb.mlocate?

If you uninstall locate, mlocate and plocate with e.g.: sudo apt remove locate mlocate plocate You can prevent them from being reinstalled with: cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/do-...
davidvandebunte's user avatar
7 votes

Error? Ext4-fs (sda6): couldn't mount as ext3 due to feature incompatibilities

Apparently you marked the partition as ext3 in /etc/fstab, when in fact it is ext4 ( or you have since converted it with tune2fs ). Change the ext3 designation to ext4 in /etc/fstab.
psusi's user avatar
  • 37.6k
7 votes
Accepted

How can an ext4 partition automatically be mounted to /var directory on system start?

Open a terminal and execute : sudo blkid ... search for the UUID of the partition you want to be mounted automatically when booting the operating system. Now add an entry to the fstab file. Open a ...
cl-netbox's user avatar
  • 31.1k

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