32k Blocksize Support

[Eric Sandeen]

D Landy wrote:
> Hi! 
> 
> I'm trying to upgrade the hard drive in my PVR, without losing all my 
> existing recordings. 
> 
> The trouble is, the data partition on the drive is in Ext2 format, but with 
> 32k blocks -- so it can't be mounted in Linux, and the standard partition 
> resizing tools won't touch it (they say it has an invalid superblock). 

Where did it come from?  What kind of PVR was this?  Anything
linux-based will be restricted to at max page-sized blocks, so if it is
32k blocks you can't mount it on an x86.

> I've managed to copy the entire old drive (80gb) to a correctly-formatted 
> new drive (160gb) using dd, and then restored the partition table correctly 
> (again with dd). The disk works fine, but it looks like an 80gb drive to the 
> PVR as the superblock etc are still set for 80gb. 
> 
> Can anyone think of a workaround for this problem? Are there any partition 
> resizing tools that will touch 32k-block partitions? Has anyone seen a tool 
> that will fix up the superblock and sector allocation tables? Could anyone 
> write one? 

Don't confuse a partition resizer w/ a filesystem resizer, they are 2
different steps.

You can use your favorite partition resizer (parted, fdisk) w/o trouble,
I'd think; it won't care what the data within the partition is.  So just
move the end of your partition out to 160G.

At that point I'd think you could do an offline resize; you can't do it
online because a 4k-page linux box won't mount a 32k-block ext*
filesystem, but the offline variant *should* be able to I'd think.

BUT - if this is a TiVO, I'd go look for the various utilities & howtos
which have been published about how to do this, and not try to roll your
own procedure.

-Eric

> Any help would be much appreciated. 
> 
> David 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Ext3-users mailing list
> Ext3-users at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/ext3-users