Topic: Bad super-block

[Ariel]

On startup, I'm getting the following error:

fsck.ext2: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/hda

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem, the the superblock is corrupt and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
  e2fsck -b 8193

When we follow this instruction, regardless of the superblock backup # (which we found lots of...) we get the same error again and again.

Any suggestions?

TIA
Ariel

[Steve]

you need a partition number, as /dev/hda is the entire hard disk.
(example: /dev/hda1, /dev/hda2...etc)

[Steve]

if you only had one partition, it would be at /dev/hda1.
What type of interface is your hard disk, IDE or SCSI?
Say if you had a SCSI hard drive (/dev/sda) and an internal IDE zip drive (/dev/hda) it would make sense in that case. but if you had a single IDE hard drive, your first partition is /dev/hda1, second /dev/hda2 etc..

Ariel Jones wrote:

> We tried that, and it kept getting an error about a "short read" and
> the question "Could this be a zero length partition?"
>
> We're pretty sure we only have one partition
>
> a

[Steve]

hda2 is the extended partition (containing hda5 and hda6) so yea, it would give you that if you tried to access it as an ext2 filesystem or run fsck on it.

Ariel Jones wrote:

> Hmm... on the startup partition check, it says this:
>
> hda: hda1 hda2
>
> When i run fsck on hda1, it says FILE SYSTEM MODIFIED. When I run on  hda2, I get the "short read, zero length partition?" error...
>
> If I reboot after the file system is modified, the file system check  errors out and drops me to the shell again.
>
> Sigh... I just don't know what's wrong.
>
> Thanks so much for your help
>
> a