Arch Linux

peoro

Member

Registered: 2007-06-10

Posts: 67

Broken root filesystem

Hello,
I've got two eeePCs, both running arch, and yesterday I updated packages and manage to break both of them
They've got a 8GB SSDisk per each, on which only Arch is installed.

The fisrt one has got a boot partition (/dev/sda1) on EXT2, and a root (/dev/sda2) on EXT4.
When booting, kernel gets loaded but it panicks saying root filesystem cannot be mounted.
I cannot even mount the root partition using an Arch 2009.08-core-i686 written on an USB stick: the boot partition (/dev/sdb1) works fine, but mount fails on /dev/sdb2, and also fsck says that /dev/sdb2's superblock is not valid: bad magic number. Not even the backup superblock can be used...
Since everything was working fine last time I used the eeePC, I halted it correctly and nothing bad happened to it meanwhile, I'm hoping I didn't lose the filesystem and my data...
How could I check what the problem is?

The second machine (I haven't got it with me at the moment, forgot it home... as soon as I get there I'll boot it using the USB stick) should have only one partition, containing the root filesystem, partitioned with NILFS2.
If I recall correcly GRUB cannot even load the kernel: maybe it stopped supporting NILFS2 filesystems? Anyway unless I won't be able to get my data from Arch live, this is not a big problem...

EDIT: I noticed two other similar threads... Maybe last upgraded broke "esotic" filesystems?
Anyway I cannot mount the EXT4 FS even from Arch Live (while it looks like the others can), and this sounds pretty weird to me...

Last edited by peoro (2010-02-04 18:06:36)

.:B:.

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2006-11-26

Posts: 5,819

Website

Re: Broken root filesystem

I can report I have something similar going on, but with my own kernel. With the Arch kernel it works just fine.

Did you check if you have any /dev/sd? devices when you get dropped to a recovery shell? I know I don't, with my own kernel.

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Got Leenucks? :: Arch: Power in simplicity :: Get Counted! Registered Linux User #392717 :: Blog thingy

peoro

Member

Registered: 2007-06-10

Posts: 67

Re: Broken root filesystem

Well, when the kernel panics I got no recovery shell... Anyway Linux (before panicing) says that it detected /dev/sda, /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2, and tries to mount /dev/sda2 as root FS.
If on GRUB I change kernel's root parameter (putting there an inexistant partition) I get the busybox, and if I type `echo /dev/*', I can see the disk and all of its partitions (/dev/sda, /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2).

Anyway I'm terribly afraid the problem could be another: it'd be OK if new kernel is broken and it cannot mount root FS, but Arch Live should do it. Or should it not?

RJARRRPCGP

Member

From: USA (Vermont)

Registered: 2006-07-08

Posts: 23

Re: Broken root filesystem

This may be a SSD failure. Because flash has a limited amount of writes.

Last edited by RJARRRPCGP (2010-02-05 01:51:51)

.:B:.

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2006-11-26

Posts: 5,819

Website

Re: Broken root filesystem

That doesn't look to me like something a failing SSD would produce? I'd think more about I/O errors...

Have you tried using an older kernel peoro?

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Got Leenucks? :: Arch: Power in simplicity :: Get Counted! Registered Linux User #392717 :: Blog thingy

peoro

Member

Registered: 2007-06-10

Posts: 67

Re: Broken root filesystem

I tried using Arch Live, which is running a 2.6.30...
I'll try to download and install other live distros on my USB stick...

leberyo

Member

Registered: 2009-12-30

Posts: 123

Re: Broken root filesystem

Exact same problem for me.  I'm unable to boot into the system.  This makes me realize Arch isn't really stable enough for my business machine.

RJARRRPCGP

Member

From: USA (Vermont)

Registered: 2006-07-08

Posts: 23

Re: Broken root filesystem

That doesn't look to me like something a failing SSD would produce? I'd think more about I/O errors...

Have you tried using an older kernel peoro?

I agree, but sometimes they just appear as sudden file errors, (even though not with an SSD) at least that was true with a bad Western Digital Caviar WD5000AAJS HDD.

Last edited by RJARRRPCGP (2010-02-05 22:02:06)

peoro

Member

Registered: 2007-06-10

Posts: 67

Re: Broken root filesystem

Actually I don't think it's some problem like that...
After I last halted the system (and the halting process went fine, didn't have to force anything) nothing happend to the machine (didn't even move it)... Besides it's not an old machine, I've only got it for a few months (consider that this arch is the first OS I installed on it, and when I installed it ext4 was already out): it's highly unlikely that it reached the writes limit...

Moreover it looks like other users had got similar problems with filesystems the same days:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=90179
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=90292 (not sure how related this is, anyway makes me think something about filesystems/partitions happend...)

@leberyo: what FS were you using?

peoro

Member

Registered: 2007-06-10

Posts: 67

Re: Broken root filesystem

Ok, well, I backupedd my first eeepc disk (using dd) and maybe will try to recover it in the future... Luckily it didn't contain important non-backupped data...

Now I just found some spare time to try and get the second eeepc back to work (the one that has got the root on a nilfs2 filesystem).
Using Arch Live I could mount the nilfs2 filesystem: it's not corrupted. I chrooted in, updated the system (and now am writing from this chroot using elinks): everything is fine here.
But if I try to reboot the system (using the Arch installed, with the root on nilfs2) it fails mounting the root FS and drops me to the busybox on ramfs... What's the problem? It looks like nilfs2 module is still provided by Linux 2.6.26...

Last edited by peoro (2010-02-19 16:49:40)