Topic: problem booting up for linux novice

[Spencer Fornaciari]

I recently went to reboot my server after an extended period online and during its start up process I get this error:

Checking root file system
/contains a file system with errors, check forced
/:unconnected directory inode 5472289 (/var/spool/squid/09/???)
/:unexpected inconsistency; run fsck manually
                 (i.e. without -a or -p options)

I admit I'm a linux novice, so I was hoping someone here is familiar with this problem and hopefully someone has an idea of how to fix it.  Thanks for any help.
-Spencer

[Dan G.]

Enter your root password where prompted, and then enter:

fsck /

It will go through a series of passes, analyzing and fixing disk errors.  You will need to stand there with your finger on the Enter key, pressing to confirm "Y" for each error it finds.  Depending on how large your hard disk is, this can be quite a while.

Welcome to the obsolete world of the ext2 file system...

Dan