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I tried mounting an existing EBS Storage (which has data) to an instance, but it keeps throwing this error.

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/xvdf,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error

       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail or so.

The storage details are:

ec2-user@ip ~]$ sudo parted -l
Model: Xen Virtual Block Device (xvd)
Disk /dev/xvda: 8590MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name                 Flags
128     1049kB  2097kB  1049kB               BIOS Boot Partition  bios_grub
 1      2097kB  8590MB  8588MB  ext4         Linux


Model: Xen Virtual Block Device (xvd)
Disk /dev/xvdf: 16.1GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name                 Flags
128     1049kB  2097kB  1049kB               BIOS Boot Partition  bios_grub
 1      2097kB  16.1GB  16.1GB  ext4         Linux

dmesg | tail shows the following details

   [ec2-user@ip- ~]$ dmesg | tail
[    2.593163] piix4_smbus 0000:00:01.3: SMBus base address uninitialized - upgrade BIOS or use force_addr=0xaddr
[    2.625565] evbug: Connected device: input0 (AT Translated Set 2 keyboard at isa0060/serio0/input0)
[    2.625568] evbug: Connected device: input2 (Power Button at LNXPWRBN/button/input0)
[    2.625570] evbug: Connected device: input3 (Sleep Button at LNXSLPBN/button/input0)
[    3.657958] input: ImExPS/2 Generic Explorer Mouse as /devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input4
[    3.664979] evbug: Connected device: input4 (ImExPS/2 Generic Explorer Mouse at isa0060/serio1/input0)
[    5.731219] EXT4-fs (xvda1): re-mounted. Opts: (null)
[    5.938276] NET: Registered protocol family 10
[   11.720921] audit: type=1305 audit(1412199137.191:2): audit_pid=2080 old=0 auid=4294967295 ses=4294967295 res=1
[  101.024164] EXT4-fs (xvdf): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem
[ec2-user@ip- ~]$
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3 Answers 3

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74

Looks like you have partitioned that block device. In this case, you need to mount /dev/xvdf1, not just /dev/xvdf.

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5
  • Seems to work. Will update in few minutes. Thanks for this.
    – Sai
    Oct 1, 2014 at 21:48
  • 1
    Yes. Even if attached as "xvdf" using AWS Dashboard, must mount as xvdf1. To tell if you have a partitioned drive, check /dev: ls /dev/xvdf* and if so, you will see more than one entry.
    – Brent Faust
    Nov 14, 2015 at 22:05
  • @Rubistro That only applies if you've partitioned the block device.
    – EEAA
    Nov 14, 2015 at 22:06
  • This literally saved my job (probably). It's odd that the Amazon AWS documentation doesn't make mention of this on this page - aws.amazon.com/articles/5213606968661598.
    – chamberlainpi
    Jun 19, 2016 at 0:54
  • This saved my day. I was following this (alestic.com/2011/02/ec2-fix-ebs-root) article and I was stuck at mounting EBS volume onto a second instance (sudo mount /dev/xvdj /vol-a). After seeing this, I did sudo mount /dev/xvdj1 /vol-a and the rest worked as usual
    – roronoa
    Oct 4, 2023 at 12:08
2

For me there was some mysterious file causing this issue.

First check your partitions to make sure you are running an ext3 volume and then:

For me I had to clear the directory using the following command.

sudo mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sdf

Warning: this might delete files you have saved. So you can run ls to make sure you don't lose important saved files

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3
  • 1
    This can be absolutely destructive if you are not running an ext3 volume. You can also encounter OP error if you have picked the wrong fs type. For example if you try mount an ext4 volume as an ext3 volume. Heads up before someone deletes their data!
    – Justin Fortier
    Jul 14, 2020 at 18:14
  • 1
    @JustinFortier, does the edit make it safer, or is there anything else that should be mentioned?
    – ScottyBlades
    Jul 15, 2020 at 1:04
  • thanks, would suck if someone blindly copied and pasted that without checking first. Especially since OPs output log mentions ext4.
    – Justin Fortier
    Jul 20, 2020 at 18:58
1

My problem seems to be the new server I tried to mount the secondary EBS volume to was from the same Amazon Linux image

This lead to both disks having the same UUID

[ec2-user@ip-172-31-2-42 ~]$ lsblk -f
NAME          FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
nvme0n1
├─nvme0n1p1   xfs          /     974bfdce-a279-4e16-b3a4-114c0f95708b    6.4G    19% /
├─nvme0n1p127
└─nvme0n1p128 vfat   FAT16       CE90-017B
nvme1n1
├─nvme1n1p1   xfs          /     974bfdce-a279-4e16-b3a4-114c0f95708b
├─nvme1n1p127
└─nvme1n1p128 vfat   FAT16       CE90-017B

I created a new instance from a different source AMI (Ubuntu) and it mounted fine

sudo mkdir /olddisk
sudo mount -t xfs /dev/xvdf1 /olddisk
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