[CLUE-Tech] filesystem error at boot

[Jed S. Baer]

On Fri, 23 Aug 2002 21:43:38 -0600
David Anselmi <anselmi at americanisp.net> wrote:

> apurna Kumar ghosh wrote:
> > 
> > Checking root filesystem
> > / contains a file system with errors, check forced.
> > /:
> > Directory inode 228107, block 0, offset 0: directory corrupted
> > 
> > /: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
> >                  (i.e., without -a or -p options)
> > 
> > [FAILED]
>  >
> > (Repair filesystem) 1 #
> > 
> > 
> > but what do I do then???  I have typed in fsck (return) but just get
> > 
> > (Repair filesystem) 2 #
> 
> We all know that Red Hat sucks, so you should switch to GNU Hurd.

Hey, I've herd of GNU. They make a formidable cluster, if you can get them
to cooperate, although their computational power is difficult to access,
given that the brain-wave interface is currently unmaintained. ;-)

> Sorry, sorry, I'm kidding.  Bad joke from the sendmail thread ;-)
> 
> Type "fsck /dev/hda1" or something like that.  The /dev/hda1 is the 
> partition your root filesystem is on (that's what the / above means). 
> If you aren't sure where your / is, type "cat /etc/fstab" and look for a
> line like this:
> 
> /dev/sda1    /               ext3    errors=remount-ro       0       1
> 
> Notice that the second field is where the / is and the first field 
> (/dev/sda1 in this example) is what you type after the fsck command. 
> You'll probably be asked some questions about whether to fix things or 
> not and you probably don't have much choice but to answer yes.  And 
> things will probably be better when you're done.

I went through this exactly once, so my memory of how it all worked (and
it did all work, BTW) is pretty slim. A thorough reading of the e2fsck (or
more properly {filesystemtype}fsck) man page is essential, I think. I
wound up having to use one of the "backup" superblocks to get things
repaired -- you might not need that step, but I'm pretty certain fsck will
tell you (by way of a bad superblock message) the first time you run it,
that you'll need to add that option.

The "#" would appear to be the root prompt. I'm clueless about the
incrementing number in the prompt string -- assuming it is the root prompt
string.

HTH,
jed
-- 
We're frogs who are getting boiled in a pot full of single-character
morphemes, and we don't notice. - Larry Wall; Perl6, Apocalypse 5