diff --git a/fs/reiserfs/xattr_security.c b/fs/reiserfs/xattr_security.c
index d8b5bfcbdd30..de1fcffd906b 100644
--- a/fs/reiserfs/xattr_security.c
+++ b/fs/reiserfs/xattr_security.c
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ int reiserfs_security_init(struct inode *dir, struct inode *inode,
 		return error;
 	}
 
-	if (sec->length) {
+	if (sec->length && reiserfs_xattrs_initialized(inode->i_sb)) {
 		blocks = reiserfs_xattr_jcreate_nblocks(inode) +
 			 reiserfs_xattr_nblocks(inode, sec->length);
 		/* We don't want to count the directories twice if we have
diff --git a/include/linux/reiserfs_xattr.h b/include/linux/reiserfs_xattr.h
index 99928dce37ea..7fa02b4af838 100644
--- a/include/linux/reiserfs_xattr.h
+++ b/include/linux/reiserfs_xattr.h
@@ -70,6 +70,11 @@ int reiserfs_security_write(struct reiserfs_transaction_handle *th,
 void reiserfs_security_free(struct reiserfs_security_handle *sec);
 #endif
 
+static inline int reiserfs_xattrs_initialized(struct super_block *sb)
+{
+	return REISERFS_SB(sb)->priv_root != NULL;
+}
+
 #define xattr_size(size) ((size) + sizeof(struct reiserfs_xattr_header))
 static inline loff_t reiserfs_xattr_nblocks(struct inode *inode, loff_t size)
 {