Cannot mount an existing EBS on AWS

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- ~]$ 

Solution 1:

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

Solution 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