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Ext3 and fsck [solved]


mattie
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Hi,

I'm a new Mandrake 10.1 OE user, and had a power failure last night. When rebooting, I get a message that my system didn't properly shut down the last time, and that I have to decide within 5 seconds if I want to run some tool..? I couldn't decide within 5 seconds, so I didn't run the check. Afterwards, I tried running fsck but it wouldn't work since the partition should not be mounted when doing that (when can you do that then? it's my root partition). Is fsck allowed altogether? Because I have a ext3 fs and read somewhere that fsck is for ext2 partitions. I don't feel very comfortable with it so I don't dare booting Mdk atm ;)

Then again I wonder: if you only get 5 seconds to read the question and respond, it probably means the default best thing to do is do nothing? :)

 

please enlighten me :)

 

mattie

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don't worry just say 'y'

 

If you couldn't say 'y' and you feel bad about it, you can do the following: At lilo prompt press <esc> , then type 'linux 1' (or whatever_image 1), that will boot you into runlevel 1. then run fsck(1) to the partition that failed (don't worry if it is mounted). When all is fixed, type "init 5" and that bring you to *normal* runlevel 5

 

(1) fsck will notice that the partition is ext3 an act accordingly

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(1) fsck will notice that the partition is ext3 an act accordingly

maybe that's what it supposed to do but ppl are doing it and it is screwing up their fs. Just happen last week and there's a post every couple of months about the same thing. I don't trust it. So maybe it's not? and e2fsck needs to be used manually from init 1? I never say yes nor do I ever even run the checks. When I did, nothing was ever found and my installs are fine, no probs.

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Hi,

 

thanks for the info

 

somewhere on the forum, I read:

Newbie lets his server run all day and all night. Once in awhile the power goes out and resets his computer. With a non-journaling fs like ext2 he may lose data and may experience filesystem corruption when the machine resets because the disk isn't properly finalized and unmounted safely. With a journaling filesystem, the filesystem compares the dates on the log with other info on the drive, replaying the log to repair/replace lost data. Did I mention it's really, really fast too? Ext2, in the event of a crash, forces fsck to run. Fsck is the filesystem checker utility that checks/repairs partitions much like scandisk on windows. Journaling filesystems don't require a fsck very often, if at all. They replay their logs and keep going.

This seems to tell, a journaling system repairs itself? So I should do nothing?

 

mattie

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I do it depending if I'm in front of the computer or not when a hard reboot happens. So given that I only have ext3 for the root partition either in my server and in my workstation (the rest are reiserfs), given that the server is up 24/7 and the work station is almost the same, given that a hard reboot happens only once each three months (due to electrical storms and similar electric failures), and 'finally' given that the probability of me being infront of the computer when that happens is minimal (though has happened). I must confess that I almost never say 'y' to that question but either when I said yes or when it booted w/o that check I've never had a problem with my ext3 filesystems. So in my experience is safe to say 'y' though I'm talking from that own limited experience. ;)

 

But as a disclaimer it is also true that I know what has to be done when a fs gets corrupted and thats what is posted in my former post --years of linux experience --. But as bvc has posted when that happens I confess that I run manually e2fsck for ext3 and reiserfsck for reiserfs instead of just fsck (though I'm sure fsck will go automatically and do the same I do by hand) so IMHO its a matter of taste (or not?)

Edited by aru
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