anna.morris's blog
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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…