"Device is apparently in use by the system; mke2fs forced anyway." error while creating an ext3 filesystem in RHEL5.

Solution Verified - Updated -

Issue

  • While creating an ext3 filesystem on an 11TB device, mkfs.ext3 command fails with the below error:
# mkfs.ext3 -F -b 4096 /dev/mapper/Mechp1
mke2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
/dev/mapper/Mechp1 is apparently in use by the system; mke2fs forced
anyway.
/dev/mapper/Mechp1: Device or resource busy while setting up superblock

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
  • Filesystem

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