Arch Linux

Cippa Lippa

Member

From: Toronto, ON

Registered: 2007-04-12

Posts: 159

Disaster!

Dear all

I was just restoring a backup of root when the power went off and now arch wouldn't start. It get stuck at the filesystem check telling me that the filesystem is not ext (which it is) or the superblock is bad...

any ideaa on what is the protocol to follow in these cases???
\Cippa

Cippa Lippa

Member

From: Toronto, ON

Registered: 2007-04-12

Posts: 159

Re: Disaster!

it seems it has screwed up all the partitions as now from the windows boot I can't see any of them

Cippa Lippa

Member

From: Toronto, ON

Registered: 2007-04-12

Posts: 159

Re: Disaster!

ok, I tried to bott into a livecd (KUBUNTU) and there I was able to perform e2fsck on all the ext3 partitions and there were some errors but nothing dramatic.

after such corrections the system still won't boot into Arch and it would get stuuck at the /dev/sda6 filesystem check as it says it is not ext2 (as a matter of fact it is ext3) or that there is a corrupt superblock.
Now after having done the e2fsck I think I can say that the superblock should be fine otherwise e2fsck would have told me something (right?). so I assume that arch thinks that the partition should be ext2 but it is ext3 and so it gets stuck

HELP???

Cippa Lippa

Member

From: Toronto, ON

Registered: 2007-04-12

Posts: 159

Re: Disaster!

I have the feeling that arch cannot mount the root partition as now I can see an error before the filesystem check in which it can't get one of the modules for "insufficient permissions"

any idea?

brebs

Member

Registered: 2007-04-03

Posts: 3,742

Re: Disaster!

Don't trust the partition as-is - *reformat* it. Then restore your backup. That's what I'd do.

Cippa Lippa

Member

From: Toronto, ON

Registered: 2007-04-12

Posts: 159

Re: Disaster!

:-( I was hoping there would have been a less destructive option...

ralvez

Member

From: Canada

Registered: 2005-12-06

Posts: 1,718

Website

Re: Disaster!

:-( I was hoping there would have been a less destructive option...

As a matter of fact there is.

Using the boot CD mount the home directory and extract your files, **THEN** reformat your HDD. Sure, you have to re-install but your data is safe ...

R

serrghi

Member

From: Bergen, NO

Registered: 2008-02-12

Posts: 100

Website

Re: Disaster!

Experienced the same prob, after hours of back and forth different solutions, i backed up my home partion and just reformatted. actually took shorter time to reformat and reinstall than trying to rescue the system

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Cippa Lippa

Member

From: Toronto, ON

Registered: 2007-04-12

Posts: 159

Re: Disaster!

yes, I tried to recover from a backup containin root but it still won't load. It gets a error at loading the modules. It can't find a certain /lib/modules/arch2.6.24/kernel/drivers/media/usb/video/gspca.ko and after logging in on the kdm it gets stuck...

any idea how I can see the log of the boot in a text editor???

Cippa

Cippa Lippa

Member

From: Toronto, ON

Registered: 2007-04-12

Posts: 159

Re: Disaster!

ok, understood, it was a stupid problem with persmission and ownership of the home folder... somehow it got changed to root even though I always preserved permissions...

Redroar

Member

Registered: 2008-03-17

Posts: 200

Re: Disaster!

You also may want to back up /etc. It makes it really easy to bring back your configs.

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