[SOLVED]Acck! /home/[username] just vanished!

LeoSolaris · 2008-09-11 18:11:56

Here is what I know.

I tried out JFS for my /home partition. Today while watching a TV show on hulu.com the show froze, and I had to do a hard powerdown. When I turned it back on, it would not load the partition my /home was on, and gave me this message:

 mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on sda6. 
Missing code page or helper program or other error. 
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so

I tried dmesg | tail as root in Arch and it returned a padlock: VIA padlock (something, it was the most relevant, but not really relevant as far as I could tell.)

I hopped over to my girlfriend's Ubuntu 8.04.1 partition and tried to mount the partition. I got exactly the same error, but when I hit up dmesg I got this:

[   79.800408] JFS: nTxBlock = 8192, nTxLock = 65536

Is this recoverable? I had a lot of stuff on there, and I would rather not have to redo everything...

I tried to use the recovery boot option, but it just booted as normal. (confused... I am used to recovery booting dropping me into a console.)

I would really appreciate some help here.

Last edited by LeoSolaris (2008-09-15 00:27:49)

Zeist · 2008-09-11 19:35:45

Did you try to fsck it? If you didn't then do so as it might fix some issues or at least tell you more in detail what the problem is.

Misfit138 · 2008-09-11 19:37:37

Read the man page for jfs_fsck carefully.
Run it on the unmounted partition in trouble, chances are very good you will recover.

LeoSolaris · 2008-09-12 11:25:35

Oh good! Thank you both. I had a feeling that it could be fixed, it's just I wasn't sure how. I'll drag up the man pages shortly.

Thanks again!

Edit: Ok, check done and repaired. Ubuntu has checks set automaticly at boot time.... how do I add those? Just add jfs_fsck and rieser_fsck (fs for / ) to rc.conf? What do I need to configure to set it to scan every 30 boots or so? Is it actually needed, or should I not really worry about it so long as I am able to perform an fsck on the disk in question? (Like with a LiveCD or another install)

Last edited by LeoSolaris (2008-09-12 11:52:38)

KimTjik · 2008-09-12 11:56:57

I mainly use JFS - to me that's the best overall file-system - and what you've experienced is a quite normal but rare scenario in case of an unclean file-system. I've experienced it a couple of times, and a simple jfs_fsck -v -f was enough to do and then reboot.

I would be surprised if you've encountered anything more severe.

Last edited by KimTjik (2008-09-12 11:58:25)

Misfit138 · 2008-09-12 12:20:53

KimTjik wrote:

I mainly use JFS - to me that's the best overall file-system - and what you've experienced is a quite normal but rare scenario in case of an unclean file-system. I've experienced it a couple of times, and a simple jfs_fsck -v -f was enough to do and then reboot.
I would be surprised if you've encountered anything more severe.

Agreed.
JFS is the best overall. It has its disadvantages like everything else, but at this point, it is an optimal mix between maturity, modernity, performance and features.

dav7 · 2008-09-12 13:12:38

LeoSolaris wrote:

Ok, check done and repaired. Ubuntu has checks set automaticly at boot time

Arch already does. Note how it explicitly told you there was an error? That's because it runs fsck at every startup, automatically, on all partitions and disks that are connected to the system, and checks fsck's exit status to make sure the check was all okay. The code is in /etc/rc.sysinit, but I cannot stress that you should not modify this file unless you know what you're doing, and have a backup of the file as well as a recovery CD handy. Peeking (reading the file as any non-root user) is fine though, and I invite you to do that

PS. If you've resolved the issue, edit the original post to say "[resolved]" as the subject or something equivalent

-dav7

Last edited by dav7 (2008-09-12 13:13:21)

LeoSolaris · 2008-09-15 00:33:50

dav7 wrote:

LeoSolaris wrote:
Ok, check done and repaired. Ubuntu has checks set automaticly at boot time
Arch already does. Note how it explicitly told you there was an error? That's because it runs fsck at every startup, automatically, on all partitions and disks that are connected to the system, and checks fsck's exit status to make sure the check was all okay. The code is in /etc/rc.sysinit, but I cannot stress that you should not modify this file unless you know what you're doing, and have a backup of the file as well as a recovery CD handy. Peeking (reading the file as any non-root user) is fine though, and I invite you to do that
PS. If you've resolved the issue, edit the original post to say "[resolved]" as the subject or something equivalent
-dav7

Ok, sorry bout that, press of classes and a pretty girlfriend.

I do like JFS, it's pretty quick, and it does give an edge over ext3 in file transfers to my usb harddrive. I use rieserfs for root because I never really keep big files there, and it does seem to be swifter with little ones.

I am chalking this one up to learning more command line wizardry.

byte · 2008-09-15 07:52:36

JFS doesn't have that support for 'fsck on every 30th boot or after 20 days' like Ext2/3 have, but you can force a full fsck on the next boot with 'shutdown -F -r now'. Or simply 'touch /forcefsck'.
But in case of JFS you should have a close eye on the content of /lost+found afterwards; it managed to trash my complete /usr/man/man3, multiple times, on multiple computers, all with JFS on /.
It's also not uncommon that it loses currently opened files (browser history, KDE preferences...) on hard reboots, but that probably goes for any filesystem.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-09-11 18:11:56

[SOLVED]Acck! /home/[username] just vanished!

#2 2008-09-11 19:35:45

Re: [SOLVED]Acck! /home/[username] just vanished!

#3 2008-09-11 19:37:37

Re: [SOLVED]Acck! /home/[username] just vanished!

#4 2008-09-12 11:25:35

Re: [SOLVED]Acck! /home/[username] just vanished!

#5 2008-09-12 11:56:57

Re: [SOLVED]Acck! /home/[username] just vanished!

#6 2008-09-12 12:20:53

Re: [SOLVED]Acck! /home/[username] just vanished!

#7 2008-09-12 13:12:38

Re: [SOLVED]Acck! /home/[username] just vanished!

#8 2008-09-15 00:33:50

Re: [SOLVED]Acck! /home/[username] just vanished!

#9 2008-09-15 07:52:36

Re: [SOLVED]Acck! /home/[username] just vanished!

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