diff --git a/fs/ext3/namei.c b/fs/ext3/namei.c
index f6ce3e79d315..34b6d9bfc48a 100644
--- a/fs/ext3/namei.c
+++ b/fs/ext3/namei.c
@@ -1416,10 +1416,19 @@ static int make_indexed_dir(handle_t *handle, struct dentry *dentry,
 	frame->at = entries;
 	frame->bh = bh;
 	bh = bh2;
+	/*
+	 * Mark buffers dirty here so that if do_split() fails we write a
+	 * consistent set of buffers to disk.
+	 */
+	ext3_journal_dirty_metadata(handle, frame->bh);
+	ext3_journal_dirty_metadata(handle, bh);
 	de = do_split(handle,dir, &bh, frame, &hinfo, &retval);
-	dx_release (frames);
-	if (!(de))
+	if (!de) {
+		ext3_mark_inode_dirty(handle, dir);
+		dx_release(frames);
 		return retval;
+	}
+	dx_release(frames);
 
 	return add_dirent_to_buf(handle, dentry, inode, de, bh);
 }
@@ -2282,7 +2291,7 @@ out_stop:
 	return err;
 err_drop_inode:
 	unlock_new_inode(inode);
-	iput (inode);
+	iput(inode);
 	return err;
 }