Topic: Damaged File system

[Matthew]

the powere went out as my e-smith server was shutting down, now when i boot it up it says:

Checking root file system

/: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTANCY: RUN fsck MANUALLY
        (i.e., without -a or -p options)
                                                                                        [FAILED]

***An error occured during the file system check
***Droping you to a shell: the system will reboot
***when you leave the shell
Give the password for maintenance
(or type Control-D for normal startup):



when I type the password I get the following:

(repair file system) 1#

then I type fsck

then I get the same, but with 2 instead of one, and I repeat and it keeps doing the same thing

when I do Control-D it just reboots in to the same thing


I would like to have this fixed, or at least to recover the files from the I-bays and user directories.

I would be grateful to any help I recieve

FYI I already tryed upgrading using the same cd i used to install it thinking it would replace the system files, but it didnt work.

[steve macgregor]

I have had the same problem too, but it was on a really old machine (well, they are all really old where I am trying to run the network) but I never figured it out. I just never got the server installed. Wish I knew the answer and could be of some help.

Steve

[Les Mikesell]

It should have mentioned the partition name it was trying to check before the error message, but if you are using e-smith on an ide drive it should be /dev/hda6.  You have to tell fsck the partition on the command line:
fsck /dev/hda6    (or something else if you are on SCSI)
Then it will list each error and wait for you to hit 'y' to correct it.  After all are corrected you can reboot normally.  This is actually pretty common on a busy e2fs file system and I'm surprised it isn't mentioned more in the Linux documentation.  Fsck can normally fix things but it has some built-in limit on the corrections it will make in automatic mode.

[Matthew (again)]

I found 1 solution, sorry I didn't get to try yours.  It was to install a second hardrive, install e-smith again on the new HD and mount the old filesystems that you need.  I have a feeling there is a much easier way though.