USB Hard DIsk Volume label

In my previous blog post, I've mentioned about a problem on renaming volume label of partitioned disk using gparted. For FAT32 and NTFS, there's a workaround. You just have to connect it to Windows and you can change it easily by clicking on it and renaming the volume label. But how about ext3 and ReiserFS? These two cannot be recognized on Windows (XP or Vista) without installing a program (which escaped me as of this moment).

I found an interesting thread in Ubuntu help forum which answered my questions.

Basically, the following needs to be installed by executing the command below in your terminal:

>> sudo apt-get install e2fsprogs
>> sudo apt-get install reiserfsprogs

(Actually, these files have already been installed before. You can also use the Synaptic Package Manager)

Afterwhich, execute the following commands:

>> sudo fdisk -l

This is to see all disks/devices mounted in your system and the corresponding file system.

Example:
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 2675 21486906 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdb2 2676 57503 440405910 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 57504 112331 440405910 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb4 112332 114942 20972857+ 83 Linux

Note: Remember to unmount the devices before executing the instructions below:

For ext3 filesystem:

>> sudo e2label

Example:
>> sudo e2label /dev/sdb2 Tesla-Ext3

For reiserfs filesystem:
>> sudo reiserfstune -l

Example:
>> sudo reiserfstune -l Maxwell-RFS /dev/sdb4

Unmount the said devices then plug it in after a few seconds. The mountpoint/volume label should have taken effect by now.


Reason why I need to change the volume label? It's rather distracting to see 22GB disk, right? It is not descriptive enough.