Re: Corrupted superblock

["Arne Chr. Jorgensen" <instel-at-online.no>]

Maybe I should keep my mouth shut, because I don't have a clue :)

On Fri, 03 Mar 2000, you wrote:
>Hi,
>
>My EMC installation may or may not be toast... RTLinux won't boot,
>Serious stuff! The computer has forgotten its name and there is not a
>user called root. I get error 202 and error 204... and a message that
>inode bit 6 is already set and that the file system is not a file
>system.

I am not sure about the error messages,  but check the lilo.conf.   It is not
certain it is the user "root" it referes to, but the root file system, that is
the entry point.  Check that it will start the right partitions.  You may check
fstab, and mtab in /etc to see the file systems.

I don't know, but inode bit 6 could maybe be the "dirty" flag.  That is the one
that tells fsck program to check everything.  Maybe if you just run fsck
manually, - just type fsck /dev/hda?  or whatever you have as a root file
system.  Check the password file, and see that you have a user named root. If
the password is corrupted - do "passwd root" - and enter a new password.

>  Where can I find information on corrupted superblocks?
 
This is too complicated to debug if you don't have the right tools.  But fsck
should fix it for you.  And as you say -  most looks like it is there.  If any
"loose"  parts appears, you may find them in the directory "found&lost" and
find what program you should update ( just do rpm -U file,  if a remember
correct )

The dirty bit -  is something special.  Mostly the filesystem is said to be
"dirty" - so on boot up - it will do a fsck of the system.  But this option is
possible to turn off.  It will boot much faster, but you will once in a while
get problems like the one you have - I think.  You need to drop to a rescue
shell, or use a rescue floppy, or enter the system like you have done. 

There is probably a lot more qualified people here that could tell you more
about this, -  and I hope I didn't say anything wrong.  But the last thing to
do, is to reinstall (IMO)

( Note:  this is some habbit that people have learned from Bill Gate :)

//ARNE





>The basic question is should I attempt to fix this drive or nuke it and
>start over?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Clint Bach