diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 5777e0ccf..ba05bb26d 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@ linux-2.6 (2.6.33-1~experimental.3) UNRELEASED; urgency=low
   * linux-base: Don't show empty list of devices to be relabelled
   * linux-base: Don't update udev CD rules unnecessarily
   * linux-base: Show the device paths to be added to udev CD rules
+  * linux-base: Ignore nonexistent devices and properly handle devices
+    of unknown filesystem type (Closes: #572341)
 
  -- Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk>  Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:01:33 +0000
 
diff --git a/debian/linux-base.postinst b/debian/linux-base.postinst
index 63c439b4e..a64f560ca 100644
--- a/debian/linux-base.postinst
+++ b/debian/linux-base.postinst
@@ -1222,7 +1222,8 @@ sub scan_config_files {
 	    $id_map_text = &{$config->{needs_update}}($file);
 	} else {
 	    for my $bdev (&{$config->{list}}($file)) {
-		if ($bdev =~ m{^/dev/(?:[hs]d[a-z]\d*|s(?:cd|r)\d+)$}) {
+		if ($bdev =~ m{^/dev/(?:[hs]d[a-z]\d*|s(?:cd|r)\d+)$} &&
+		    -b $bdev) {
 		    $bdev_map{$bdev} = {};
 		    push @matched_bdevs, $bdev;
 		}
@@ -1288,7 +1289,7 @@ sub assign_labels {
 	next if $#{$bdev_map{$bdev}->{ids}} >= 0;
 
 	my $type = $bdev_map{$bdev}->{type};
-	next unless exists($label_types{$type});
+	next unless defined($type) && exists($label_types{$type});
 
 	my $label_len = $label_types{$type}->{len};
 	my $label;