The file /dev/sda1 does not exist and no size was specified.

[smartroad]

Hi!

Tried to run this using Jessie-lite and ended up with:

sudo ./adafruit-pi-externalroot-helper -d /dev/sda
Target drive = /dev/sda
[start] Will create new ext4 filesystem on /dev/sda
[start] If there is data on /dev/sda, it will be lost.
Really proceed? (y)es / (n)o y
[dependencies] Installing gdisk, rsync, and parted.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
gdisk is already the newest version.
parted is already the newest version.
rsync is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 10 not upgraded.
[fs create] Creating /dev/sda1
[fs create] Creating ext4 filesystem on /dev/sda1
mke2fs 1.42.12 (29-Aug-2014)
The file /dev/sda1 does not exist and no size was specified.

yet if I run mke2fs /dev/sda1 it formats the drive no issue
mkfs -t ext4 -L rootfs /dev/sda1 also has no issues

[skilbjo]

+1

[rpiuser314]

I have had this problem myself. I found that manually entering the command: "sudo mkfs -t ext4 -L rootfs /dev/sda1" (w/o quotes) worked just fine. I figured that perhaps the script was running faster
than the file /dev/sda1 was able to be seen. I solved the problem by adding a statement of "sleep 1" (w/o quotes) just before the mkfs ... line. Make that addition and run the script again.
Good luck!

[cartpauj]

Also ran into this myself, cloned the repo locally and modified the script with "sleep 1" as @rpiuser314 mentioned. Worked like a charm!
+1

[aronayne]

Appears to be a common issue, fix suggested by @rpiuser314 fixed it for me on Raspberry PI with Jesse. Fix should be merged with master ?

[phlbnks]

+1
Also fixed by @rpiuser314

[marqxb]

+1
Thanks @rpiuser314

[IgorGanapolsky]

I still get the error:
The file /dev/sda1 does not exist and no size was specified
despite the fix suggested in this thread...

[diostam]

The sleep 1 trick did the job. thanks

[2475810]

sleep 1 trick didn't do it for me
got around this by first run:
"sudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/sda1", then comment out this line from the script "mkfs -t ext4 -L rootfs "${target_partition}", after this the script runs without any issues.

[cryptomonk]

+1
@rpiuser314
(Open adafruit-pi-externalroot-helper with a text editor) nano adafruit-pi-externalroot-helper

Then see this: https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-Pi-ExternalRoot-Helper/pull/8/files

:)

[remrol]

Thank you, sleep 1 solves the problem for me

[JPM-git]

same here
sleep 1
solves the problem.

Thank you