How to repair filesystem?

rasat · 2002-12-30 05:35:56

My filesystem is ext3 (when asked during installation).

When the message "has been mounted 27 times without being checked" appears and asks to manually repair, what's the command?

1. mount -n -o remount, rw / (to have read-write access).

What next?
"fsck.ext3 /dev/discs/disc0/part4" (doesn't work)
"e2fsck -p /dev/discs/disc0/part4" (doesn't work)

With Partition Magic I am seeing the filesystem ext3 on Arch Linux is different than usual. What does devfs do? Why using devfs when major Linux distros doesn't use it?

With ext3 on different linux distros, I have never needed to repair the filesystem manually but with Arch Linux, when mounting 27 times, there is a problem. I have already installed Arch twice and don't want to install a third time.

sarah31 · 2002-12-30 07:32:18

isn't there some comment about continuing via ctrl-c or something? for me it always manually does the check after x times. :?

rasat · 2002-12-30 15:47:52

sarah31 wrote:

isn't there some comment about continuing via ctrl-c or something? for me it always manually does the check after x times. :?

There is Ctrl-d to exit but doesn't fix.

I see the problem is in devfs file system. Or is it in the version 0.4. As it is now, if there is no way to fix it manually then Arch Linux allows only to run 27 times and the system crashes. I have experienced it twice. This doesn't sound good.:)

Solution:

To avoid further problems, I installed this time Arch differently by not using devfs. How??? With 0.4 CD it is not possible to install without devfs. If you don't select "Yes" when installer asks: "Should I create the filesystms as well?" no packages are installed. What I did, I installed minimum packages and then copied the whole system, all folders and files, to another partition with normal ext3 filesystem. Boot the new partition and then installed rest of the packages from the CD.

My new system works fine. No need to worry for crash and can be easily fixed IF needed. I am suggesting Arch Linux to give an option for new users to insall devfs or not. Or remove it.

Arielext · 2002-12-30 17:03:36

Tried ReiserFS instead of ETX3?

Don't have any problems with devFS here, but I'm using ReiserFS.

sarah31 · 2002-12-30 17:23:41

odd that you would have this trouble i never had it in Arch so far nor did i have it in the short time i used Gentoo and both use devfs. i can't think of anything i may have done differently (well aside from installing 0.3 and not 0.4). one of the tools you use is fsck (or what ever it is called).

also this is an automated check it is not a manditory check. chances are that after booting 27 times or 1270 times your filesystem should be intact. that is the purpose of a journaled filesystem. before i borked my root partition a few weeks ago i know that i booted way more than 27 times. playing around will cause this (ie tes to see that devices or daemons start on boot etc). and i know that a file check was run automatically after a said period of time.

i have never had more than 1.5% of my filesystem be non-contiguous. hardly worth panicking about

rasat · 2002-12-30 18:37:36

sarah31 wrote:

i have never had more than 1.5% of my filesystem be non-contiguous. hardly worth panicking about

The problem is that I could not boot the system until its fixed. When trying to fix the file system it crashes..... could not even enter the partition from another partition.

Maybe its not fault of devfs but with the installer when formating with option ext3. I have used different linux distros since 1998 and never did I face such problem. If no complains are heard from other users newly installed 0.4, then its just my computer which doesn't like the format whatever it did.:)

Arch Linux is a wonderful distro. I did not mind spanding time to make it to run and give some feedback. Also I got to know the beauty what Arch Linux has compared to other distros. I am surprised why its not more popular. If Gentoo was able to come up why not Arch. Yoper did it in two weeks time claiming as "The Perfect OS" (read http://www.distrowatch.com/ ). Its a copy of Gentoo - RedHat. :?

sarah31 · 2002-12-30 20:59:25

another thought is that is that there could be a slight flaw in your disc that messed up the setup of your partitions or devfs. regardless hopefully someoneelse will come forward and tell us if they had the same problem so that is can be pinpointed as a arch bug or not.

as for the popularity thing. i dunno it think arch must be overly intimidating or something. i can't even get people angry enough to try it on some of the forums. others have trouble with the install and don't seek help or they just find it too hard to go without their fancy gui apps or tools. Yoper and gentoo are inferior products but they cater to the eye candy crowd. gentoo had to have been one of the worst distros i installed. however, the zealots would claim it was my lack of linux knowledge. which i found funny because most of them come from rpm distros. which brings me to another point is that most of the rpm refugees are just so stunned that they have a package manager that solve dependencies that they think that it is the best feature of the distro. hah portage while neat in concept is a troubled buggy POS. as for being optimized for you system because it is source based. phoey you can do that on any system

gentoo install ... though long is very easy. i guess that these zealots think that because it is long and very bare install tht they have achieve some sort of accomplishment like installing LFS. Bah i think you type maybe 25 things. with lfs you build the freaking system yourself.

gentoo imho is a POS it is buggy but like most of the other big distros the users can live with the bugs. me i will stick with arch as it has the best potential. It is small fast and very easy to learn. not whalelike like debian or buggy like red hat and gentoo.

BluPhoenyx · 2003-01-04 11:22:23

Some more notes on this:

Recently, I hit boot #24 on the current install and the filesystem test kicked in and then failed and dropped me into the single mode (as expected.) While that isn't the 27th boot as user rasat had his problems at, it is pretty close considering I had not yet had any trouble with the filesystem. Unfortunately, I did not think to stop and verify it externally. Instead, I automatically ran fsck which claimed the filesystem was clean. Since the system now claimed no errors existed, I exited single mode, which rebooted and everything worked fine.

This particular setup is on a vmware system for test purposes so I decided to run through a series of reboots to see if the error happened again. After 24 boots, the filesystem automatically ran through the scan but reported no errors and the system continued booting. So, I have no idea why the first filesystem test after installation showed a (seemingly) nonexistant error but, I thought it worth mentioning. Likewise, I don't know if this is relevant to rasat's trouble, especially since I don't know what he may have done in his attempts to repair his system while in AL.

FWIW, for those who have problems with or want to perform the checks themselves, it is possible to set the system to ignore the filesystem check. It is set in the /etc/fstab file. According to man fstab, the 6th field sets the fs_passno which can be set to 0 to ignore the filesystem. For ext3 and especially ext2 filesystems, I don't actually recommend this as it doesn't normally take long to run the test. On my setup, the / has an fs_passno value of 1 and /boot has a fs_passno value of 2 which allows /boot to be checked after /. My /boot is small so this doesn't slow things down and it's how I've always done it.

Also, rasat, when it comes time to repair your filesystem, keep in mind that it is generally unsafe to use fsck on mounted filesystems but it will warn you about this too.

rasat · 2003-01-05 03:08:49

BluPhoenyx wrote:

FWIW, for those who have problems with or want to perform the checks themselves, it is possible to set the system to ignore the filesystem check. It is set in the /etc/fstab file. According to man fstab, the 6th field sets the fs_passno which can be set to 0 to ignore the filesystem. For ext3 and especially ext2 filesystems, I don't actually recommend this as it doesn't normally take long to run the test. On my setup, the / has an fs_passno value of 1 and /boot has a fs_passno value of 2 which allows /boot to be checked after /. My /boot is small so this doesn't slow things down and it's how I've always done it.

Example, /etc/fstab for root:
/dev/discs/disc0/part1 / ext3 defaults 0 1
If I understood correctly (to ignore the filesystem check) instead of "0 1" use "0 0".

For my information, to run a check or repair the filesystem what are the fsck commands?
Also, I am curious to know what does devfs do and the advantage?

BluPhoenyx · 2003-01-06 10:53:38

rasat wrote:

Example, /etc/fstab for root:
/dev/discs/disc0/part1 / ext3 defaults 0 1
If I understood correctly (to ignore the filesystem check) instead of "0 1" use "0 0".

Yes. FWIW, with ext3 filesystems, some of the main distros do this automatically.

rasat wrote:

For my information, to run a check or repair the filesystem what are the fsck commands?

generally,

fsck -a [filesystem]

will do the trick. Sometimes you will need to use the filesystem specific version of fsck such as e2fsck (an alternate call to fsck.ext2) or fsck.ext3 (calls fsck.ext2) or whichever based on the file system as each may need specific tools. You will find much more using the man pages and some various web sites. To start, try man fsck

rasat wrote:

Also, I am curious to know what does devfs do and the advantage?

This is a long discussion and open to debate. For more info, start here. http://www.atnf.csiro.au/~rgooch/linux/docs/devfs.html

It is often considered beneficial since some think, quite properly, the standard /dev system is getting too large to control any longer. Considering the quantity of possible hardware devices and peripherals and the possibility of item quantity, it's understandable that this could happen.

xirus · 2003-03-26 14:45:15

This is kind of an old subject, but I ran into the same problem (=bug?) as some of the other posters had...

After x reboots, it just ran the standard filesystem check and said it failed.
It dropped me in single user mode, but an fsck didn't reveal any errors, so I rebooted and it all works...

Should this be submitted as a bug??

BluPhoenyx · 2003-03-27 00:44:11

It is (or was) a known bug but I don't recall if it's AL specific. In my experience with it, a simple fsck -a cleared the flag as there was nothing actually wrong with the file system. Then after the reboot, disable the check since the ext3 file system rarely needs this.

This alternative also has a small problem. When the system reboots enough, it displays a warning that the file system should be checked. This is more of an annoyance than anything but on my laptop, I boot in framebuffer mode and that text displays on the end of the text line. The text width is 128 columns so errors don't display properly. A flaw in the initscripts which I should try and fix someday.

Arch Linux

#1 2002-12-30 05:35:56

How to repair filesystem?

#2 2002-12-30 07:32:18

Re: How to repair filesystem?

#3 2002-12-30 15:47:52

Re: How to repair filesystem?

#4 2002-12-30 17:03:36

Re: How to repair filesystem?

#5 2002-12-30 17:23:41

Re: How to repair filesystem?

#6 2002-12-30 18:37:36

Re: How to repair filesystem?

#7 2002-12-30 20:59:25

Re: How to repair filesystem?

#8 2003-01-04 11:22:23

Re: How to repair filesystem?

#9 2003-01-05 03:08:49

Re: How to repair filesystem?

#10 2003-01-06 10:53:38

Re: How to repair filesystem?

#11 2003-03-26 14:45:15

Re: How to repair filesystem?

#12 2003-03-27 00:44:11

Re: How to repair filesystem?

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