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External Hard Drive Renaming Bug in Ubuntu

Just had to use windows to rename my new external hard drive as Ubuntu wouldn’t let me do it. Here were the steps I took before failing.

First, the rename option on the menu was grey.
Second, I found that I could select “rename” from the “computer” menu (only) but got the following error:

Sorry, could not rename “160 GB Hard Disk: BIPRA 160GB” to “anna160GB”: Operation not supported by backend

Third, I tried to reformat the entire disk, wondering if BIPRA had installed something to force me to stare at their brand name every day – but I got the following error.

Error creating file system: helper exited with exit code 1: helper failed with:
Total number of sectors (312560576) not a multiple of sectors per track (63)!
Add mtools_skip_check=1 to your .mtoolsrc file to skip this test mkfs.vfat 3.0.9 (31 Jan 2010)

Fourth, I wanted to test to see if this was a bug in Ubuntu or a fault with the drive. I rebooted in Windoze and found I could rename without a problem – but Windoze limits the number of characters in the name, so I couldn’t rename it as I wished.

Fifth, I switched back to Ubuntu and found that the drive name is now “160 GB Hard Disk: BACKUP_DISK” (Backup disk being what I chose in Windoze).

Sixth, I decided it would do, and that I don’t have time to try to remember my launchpad account details to report the bug – if thats what it is. I am moving to crunchbang today anyway, as I am tired of stupid bugs in Ubuntu, hence the need for a backupdrive in the first place.

Seventh, I wrote this blog.

Eighth, I went on with my day.

Thoughts: Perhaps I am selfish to not report it as a bug. Or perhaps the bug reporting system is incomprehensible to me…

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 19th, 2012 at 11:50 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “External Hard Drive Renaming Bug in Ubuntu”

  1. samtuke Says:
    April 19th, 2012 at 12:34 pm

    I recommend trying GParted if you have problems like this in future. Not 100% certain that it would have fared any better, but I think it has a better chance as it is the most widely used and in my view the most reliable HDD GUI utility for GNU/Linux.

    If only it supported resizing of LUKS encrypted partitions then it would be perfect for my needs. Sigh.

  2. anna.morris Says:
    April 19th, 2012 at 12:41 pm

    I think I have that – but didn’t know I could use it for this. I find the idea of using something not directly part of os to do anything like rename files or view my computer specs very odd. I have done it a few times, but it wouldn’t occour to me without prompting. Why is this do you think?

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