diff --git a/ext4/internal/compactext4/compact.go b/ext4/internal/compactext4/compact.go
index d9a959ffeb..42ac190568 100644
--- a/ext4/internal/compactext4/compact.go
+++ b/ext4/internal/compactext4/compact.go
@@ -520,6 +520,9 @@ func (w *Writer) lookup(name string, mustExist bool) (*inode, *inode, string, er
 // call to make these parent directories will be made at a later point with the correct
 // permissions, at that time the permissions of these directories will be updated.
 func (w *Writer) CreateWithParents(name string, f *File) error {
+	if err := w.finishInode(); err != nil {
+		return err
+	}
 	// go through the directories in the path one by one and create the
 	// parent directories if they don't exist.
 	cleanname := path.Clean("/" + name)[1:]
diff --git a/ext4/tar2ext4/tar2ext4_test.go b/ext4/tar2ext4/tar2ext4_test.go
index cfbb3ec669..9156326398 100644
--- a/ext4/tar2ext4/tar2ext4_test.go
+++ b/ext4/tar2ext4/tar2ext4_test.go
@@ -28,9 +28,9 @@ func Test_UnorderedTarExpansion(t *testing.T) {
 	var files = []struct {
 		path, body string
 	}{
+		{"foo/bar.txt", "inside bar.txt"},
 		{"data/", ""},
 		{"root.txt", "inside root.txt"},
-		{"foo/bar.txt", "inside bar.txt"},
 		{"foo/", ""},
 		{"A/B/b.txt", "inside b.txt"},
 		{"A/a.txt", "inside a.txt"},