Seeing double in /proc/partitions (Win 7 Home)

Seeing double in /proc/partitions (Win 7 Home)

[Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]]

Hi all,

Is there any special reason that most of my drives are shown twice in /proc/partitions on my home machine?
(it's still Windows 7)

Notably, all drives in between the first (C:) and the last (S:).

$ cat /proc/partitions
major minor  #blocks  name   win-mounts

    8     0 500107608 sda
    8     1    102400 sda1
    8     2 488280064 sda2   C:\
    8    16 1000204632 sdb
    8    17 1000202240 sdb1   D:\
    8    16 1000204632 sdb
    8    17 1000202240 sdb1   D:\
    8    32 1000204632 sdc
    8    33 1000202240 sdc1   G:\
    8    32 1000204632 sdc
    8    33 1000202240 sdc1   G:\
    8    48 1000204632 sdd
    8    49 1000202240 sdd1   I:\
    8    48 1000204632 sdd
    8    49 1000202240 sdd1   I:\
    8    64 234431064 sde
    8    65 234428416 sde1   F:\
    8    64 234431064 sde
    8    65 234428416 sde1   F:\
    8    80   1931264 sdf
    8    81   1931264 sdf1   S:\

$ uname -a
CYGWIN_NT-6.1 ANTON 3.2.0(0.340/5/3) 2021-03-29 08:42 x86_64 Cygwin

Thanks,

Anton Lavrentiev
Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI

Re: Seeing double in /proc/partitions (Win 7 Home)

[Brian Inglis]

On 2021-07-31 15:12, Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] via Cygwin wrote:
> Is there any special reason that most of my drives are shown twice
> in /proc/partitions on my home machine? (it's still Windows 7)
> Notably, all drives in between the first (C:) and the last (S:).
> 
> $ cat /proc/partitions
> major minor  #blocks  name   win-mounts
> 
>      8     0 500107608 sda
>      8     1    102400 sda1
>      8     2 488280064 sda2   C:\
>      8    16 1000204632 sdb
>      8    17 1000202240 sdb1   D:\
>      8    16 1000204632 sdb
>      8    17 1000202240 sdb1   D:\
>      8    32 1000204632 sdc
>      8    33 1000202240 sdc1   G:\
>      8    32 1000204632 sdc
>      8    33 1000202240 sdc1   G:\
>      8    48 1000204632 sdd
>      8    49 1000202240 sdd1   I:\
>      8    48 1000204632 sdd
>      8    49 1000202240 sdd1   I:\
>      8    64 234431064 sde
>      8    65 234428416 sde1   F:\
>      8    64 234431064 sde
>      8    65 234428416 sde1   F:\
>      8    80   1931264 sdf
>      8    81   1931264 sdf1   S:\
> 
> $ uname -a
> CYGWIN_NT-6.1 ANTON 3.2.0(0.340/5/3) 2021-03-29 08:42 x86_64 Cygwin

Do you have any kinds of multi-controller, multi-disk, RAIDx, or other 
hardware or driver setup that could result in some drives being visible 
twice on your system?

To me it looks like you may have six controllers or interfaces on your 
system, two look like usual IDE/PATA/SATE, four something more complex.

Perhaps you could also show output from:

	$ $ df -a ; fsutil volume list

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

This email may be disturbing to some readers as it contains
too much technical detail. Reader discretion is advised.
[Data in binary units and prefixes, physical quantities in SI.]

Re: Seeing double in /proc/partitions (Win 7 Home)

[Corinna Vinschen]

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On Jul 31 21:12, Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] via Cygwin wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Is there any special reason that most of my drives are shown twice in
> /proc/partitions on my home machine?

The only reason is a duplication of entries in the internal NT
namespace, which sounds pretty broken.

In a nutshell, Cygwin's /proc/partitions output is constructed from
a loop over the internal \Device directory like this:

  dir = NtOpenDirectoryObject ("\\Device"); /* i. e. "opendir" */
  while (NtQueryDirectoryObject (dir))      /* i. e. "readdir" */
    {
      if (ObjectName =~ "Harddisk[0-9]*")
      	{
	  print disk info
	  loop over partitions returned by a call to
	    DeviceIoControl (IOCTL_DISK_GET_PARTITION_INFO_EX);
	    {
	      print partition info
	    }
	}
    }
  NtClose (dir);                            /* i. e. "closedir" */

There's no code which would allow a repetition of the same entry, so any
duplicate must have been returned by the call to NtQueryDirectoryObject.

In other words, there's something fishy on your system.

If you don't have it already, download the winobj tool from
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/winobj
and check the content of the Device directory.

For comparison I attached a screenshot how this looks like on my machine.


Corinna

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RE: Seeing double in /proc/partitions (Win 7 Home)

[Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]
> Sent: Monday, August 02, 2021 10:03 AM
> To: cygwin@cygwin.com
> Subject: RE: Seeing double in /proc/partitions (Win 7 Home)
> 
> > If you don't have it already, download the winobj tool from
> > https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/winobj
> > and check the content of the Device directory.
> 
> I had winobj installed, and I'm attaching the screenshots of both drive C and other drives
> (they are shown all the same way):
> 
> Ironically, drive C (which is not dupped in the /proc/partitions output) is shown to have
> two partitions,
> but all other drives are all the same with only one (as shown in the attached pic, with
> the only difference
> for the numeric suffixes with increase sequentially).  The last drive (S:), which is not
> duplicated, either,
> has the drive number and partition number with a jump, as a two-digit number (attached,
> too)...
> 
> Anton Lavrentiev
> Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI

I think the list does not let me attach anything and thus discards the post entirely.

Drive C: screenshot: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tqCzx5aKWIuju1K0Rd9-1iJddq0VUuhs/view?usp=sharing
Other drives:        https://drive.google.com/file/d/1geb2H9hq-E6zqNLyPEJn-e1ugvlBtHMV/view?usp=sharing
Last drive (S:):     https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vfTOR5RLys1fBcFlIYpdNHmMlXkNimdM/view?usp=sharing

Anton Lavrentiev
Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI

Re: Seeing double in /proc/partitions (Win 7 Home)

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Aug  2 14:11, Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] via Cygwin wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]
> > Sent: Monday, August 02, 2021 10:03 AM
> > To: cygwin@cygwin.com
> > Subject: RE: Seeing double in /proc/partitions (Win 7 Home)
> > 
> > > If you don't have it already, download the winobj tool from
> > > https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/winobj
> > > and check the content of the Device directory.
> > 
> > I had winobj installed, and I'm attaching the screenshots of both drive C and other drives
> > (they are shown all the same way):
> > 
> > Ironically, drive C (which is not dupped in the /proc/partitions output) is shown to have
> > two partitions,
> > but all other drives are all the same with only one (as shown in the attached pic, with
> > the only difference
> > for the numeric suffixes with increase sequentially).  The last drive (S:), which is not
> > duplicated, either,
> > has the drive number and partition number with a jump, as a two-digit number (attached,
> > too)...
> > 
> > Anton Lavrentiev
> > Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI
> 
> I think the list does not let me attach anything and thus discards the post entirely.

Just paste it into your mail text.


Corinna

RE: Seeing double in /proc/partitions (Win 7 Home)

[Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]]

> Just paste it into your mail text.

I posted links to the screenshot images on my G-drive...  I can't post them into text as they are graphical

Anton Lavrentiev
Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI

Re: Seeing double in /proc/partitions (Win 7 Home)

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Aug  2 15:04, Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] via Cygwin wrote:
> > Just paste it into your mail text.
> 
> I posted links to the screenshot images on my G-drive...  I can't post them into text as they are graphical

Ok, so your \Device entries appear normal.  In that case, I don't have
an explanation for the fact that the OS call NtQueryDirectoryObject
returns all these Harddisk entries twice, except for BLODA, perhaps...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯


Corinna

RE: Seeing double in /proc/partitions (Win 7 Home)

[Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]]

> Ok, so your \Device entries appear normal.  In that case, I don't have
> an explanation for the fact that the OS call NtQueryDirectoryObject
> returns all these Harddisk entries twice, except for BLODA, perhaps...

Nothing of concern as BLODA is running on this PC, I keep it very clean.

Interesting observation, though, that I just ran "strace cat /proc/partitions",
and the output did not contain anything doubled:

major minor  #blocks  name   win-mounts

    8     0 500107608 sda
    8     1    102400 sda1
    8     2 488280064 sda2   C:\
    8    16 1000204632 sdb
    8    17 1000202240 sdb1   D:\
    8    32 1000204632 sdc
    8    33 1000202240 sdc1   G:\
    8    48 1000204632 sdd
    8    49 1000202240 sdd1   I:\
    8    64 234431064 sde
    8    65 234428416 sde1   F:\
    8    80   1931264 sdf
    8    81   1931264 sdf1   S:\

Anton Lavrentiev
Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI

RE: Seeing double in /proc/partitions (Win 7 Home)

[Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]]

> Interesting observation, though, that I just ran "strace cat /proc/partitions",
> and the output did not contain anything doubled:
 
Also this is kinda unexpected:

$ while read i; do echo $i; done < /proc/partitions
major minor #blocks name win-mounts

8 0 500107608 sda
8 1 102400 sda1
8 2 488280064 sda2 C: 8 16 1000204632 sdb
8 17 1000202240 sdb1 D: 8 16 1000204632 sdb
8 17 1000202240 sdb1 D: 8 32 1000204632 sdc
8 33 1000202240 sdc1 G: 8 32 1000204632 sdc
8 33 1000202240 sdc1 G: 8 48 1000204632 sdd
8 49 1000202240 sdd1 I: 8 48 1000204632 sdd
8 49 1000202240 sdd1 I: 8 64 234431064 sde
8 65 234428416 sde1 F: 8 64 234431064 sde
8 65 234428416 sde1 F: 8 80 1931264 sdf

RE: Seeing double in /proc/partitions (Win 7 Home)

[Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]]

> Also this is kinda unexpected:

Sorry, scratch that, the backslash in the pay with the shell... So explains the weirdness

Anton Lavrentiev
Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI

Re: Seeing double in /proc/partitions (Win 7 Home)

[Brian Inglis]

On 2021-08-02 09:04, Anton Lavrentiev wrote:
>> Just paste it into your mail text.

> I posted links to the screenshot images on my G-drive...  I can't
> post them into text as they are graphical
Under Cygwin you can also list from an elevated admin shell under 
/proc/sys (add Cygwin bin to an elevated cmd PATH) e.g.:

> ls -dglo /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk[0-9]*/*
> brw-rw-rw- 1 284, 9999 Aug  2 12:04 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk0/DR0
> lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 12:04 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk0/Partition0 -> /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk0/DR0
> lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 12:04 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk0/Partition1 -> /proc/sys/Device/HarddiskVolume1
> lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 12:04 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk0/Partition2 -> /proc/sys/Device/HarddiskVolume2
> lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 12:04 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk0/Partition3 -> /proc/sys/Device/HarddiskVolume3
> brw-rw-rw- 1 284, 9999 Aug  2 12:04 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk1/DR1
> lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 12:04 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk1/Partition0 -> /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk1/DR1
> lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 12:04 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk1/Partition1 -> /proc/sys/Device/HarddiskVolume4
> lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 12:04 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk1/Partition2 -> /proc/sys/Device/HarddiskVolume5
> lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 12:04 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk1/Partition3 -> /proc/sys/Device/HarddiskVolume6
> lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 12:04 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk1/Partition4 -> /proc/sys/Device/HarddiskVolume7
> lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 12:04 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk1/Partition5 -> /proc/sys/Device/HarddiskVolume8
> brw-rw-rw- 1 284, 9999 Aug  2 12:04 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk2/DR2
> lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 12:04 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk2/Partition0 -> /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk2/DR2
> lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 12:04 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk2/Partition1 -> /proc/sys/Device/HarddiskVolume9

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

This email may be disturbing to some readers as it contains
too much technical detail. Reader discretion is advised.
[Data in binary units and prefixes, physical quantities in SI.]

RE: Seeing double in /proc/partitions (Win 7 Home)

[Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]]

> Under Cygwin you can also list from an elevated admin shell under
> /proc/sys (add Cygwin bin to an elevated cmd PATH) e.g.:

Thanks.  Did so.  Everything is proper and singular, and totally matches the winobj display posted earlier:

$ ls -dlgo /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk[0-9]*/*
brw-rw-rw- 1 284, 9999 Aug  2  2021 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk0/DR0
lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 14:14 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk0/Partition0 -> /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk0/DR0
lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 14:14 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk0/Partition1 -> /proc/sys/Device/HarddiskVolume1
lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 14:14 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk0/Partition2 -> /proc/sys/Device/HarddiskVolume2
brw-rw-rw- 1 284, 9999 Aug  2  2021 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk1/DR1
lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 14:14 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk1/Partition0 -> /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk1/DR1
lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 14:14 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk1/Partition1 -> /proc/sys/Device/HarddiskVolume3
brw-rw-rw- 1 284, 9999 Aug  2  2021 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk2/DR2
lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 14:14 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk2/Partition0 -> /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk2/DR2
lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 14:14 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk2/Partition1 -> /proc/sys/Device/HarddiskVolume4
brw-rw-rw- 1 284, 9999 Aug  2  2021 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk3/DR3
lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 14:14 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk3/Partition0 -> /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk3/DR3
lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 14:14 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk3/Partition1 -> /proc/sys/Device/HarddiskVolume5
brw-rw-rw- 1 284, 9999 Aug  2  2021 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk4/DR4
lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 14:14 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk4/Partition0 -> /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk4/DR4
lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 14:14 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk4/Partition1 -> /proc/sys/Device/HarddiskVolume6
brw-rw-rw- 1 284, 9999 Aug  2  2021 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk5/DR57
lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 14:14 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk5/Partition0 -> /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk5/DR57
lr--r--r-- 1         0 Aug  2 14:14 /proc/sys/Device/Harddisk5/Partition1 -> /proc/sys/Device/HarddiskVolume59

And, Oh!, from the same elevated admin shell, I get no doubles from "cat /proc/partitions", either!

$ cat /proc/partitions
major minor  #blocks  name   win-mounts

    8     0 500107608 sda
    8     1    102400 sda1
    8     2 488280064 sda2   C:\
    8    16 1000204632 sdb
    8    17 1000202240 sdb1   D:\
    8    32 1000204632 sdc
    8    33 1000202240 sdc1   G:\
    8    48 1000204632 sdd
    8    49 1000202240 sdd1   I:\
    8    64 234431064 sde
    8    65 234428416 sde1   F:\
    8    80   1931264 sdf
    8    81   1931264 sdf1   S:\

Note that "winobj" had to be run "as Administrator" as well, in order for me to be able to open those entries...

IDK, if "strace" elevates itself somehow but like I noted previously, "strace -o cat.strace cat /proc/partitions" shows the list
without duplicates.

Anton Lavrentiev
Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI

RE: Seeing double in /proc/partitions (Win 7 Home)

[Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]]

> Do you have any kinds of multi-controller, multi-disk, RAIDx, or other 
> hardware or driver setup that could result in some drives being visible 
> twice on your system?

No, all the drives are single drives (no RAID) and attached to one Intel SATA controller,
using individual connectors (drive C: is one of them, BTW).  Drive S: is a multi-purpose
card reader, which is actually a USB-interfaced removable device (so it's different from
other drives).

> $ df -a

$ df -a
Filesystem       1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
C:/cygwin64/bin          -         -         -    - /usr/bin
C:/cygwin64/lib          -         -         -    - /usr/lib
C:/cygwin64      488280060 240883516 247396544  50% /
C:                       -         -         -    - /cygdrive/c
D:              1000202236 996668308   3533928 100% /cygdrive/d
F:               234428412 152089156  82339256  65% /cygdrive/f
G:              1000202236  26959316 973242920   3% /cygdrive/g
I:              1000202236 874474844 125727392  88% /cygdrive/i

> fsutil volume list

C:\Windows\system32>fsutil volume list
list is an invalid parameter.
---- VOLUME Commands Supported ----

dismount        Dismount a volume
diskfree        Query the free space of a volume
querycluster    Query which file is using a particular cluster

But I ran this instead:

DISKPART> list volume

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 0     N                       CD-ROM          0 B  No Media
  Volume 1     M                       DVD-ROM         0 B  No Media
  Volume 2         System Rese  NTFS   Partition    100 MB  Healthy    System
  Volume 3     C   OS           NTFS   Partition    465 GB  Healthy    Boot
  Volume 4     D   ....         NTFS   Partition    953 GB  Healthy    Pagefile
  Volume 5     G   ....         NTFS   Partition    953 GB  Healthy
  Volume 6     I   ....         NTFS   Partition    953 GB  Healthy
  Volume 7     F   ....         NTFS   Partition    223 GB  Healthy
  Volume 8     S                RAW    Removable   1886 MB  Healthy

Anton Lavrentiev
Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI