Inconsistancy Error

[Hobo]

While using the dial-up on my RH 7.0 box (Still using an older version of SEQ that works very well for me) we popped a circuit breaker in the house causing a power loss to my linux box.

Now, during boot up I get an error message that says something close to this:


UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENY; RUN fsck MANUALLY
( I.E. , without -a or -p options)

An error occurred during the file system check.
Dropping you to a shell; the system will reboot
when you leave the shell.

Give root password for maintenancy
( or type Control-D for normal startup):



I've done a bunch of interent searching and everything points back to the fact that I have to run fsck manually to fix the problem. All the information I have found so far indicates the fsck command should include which partition I want to fun fsck on. I.E. -

fsck /dev/sda1

(Note the above is only an example I pulled from internet)


My problem is that I have no idea which partition to run fsck on. My error message doesn't include ANYTHING indicating which partition the error is on. Nothing resembling a "/dev/xxxx". It just says it failed and indicates an inode number.

I tried to run just the command fsck and got no response. Tried running it with fsck -a -y and others. Still nothing. Seems fsck is not doing anything. I also read something about trying rto use the command "e2fsck". Tried this and still nothing. I suspect I need the /dev/xxxx info in the command line to make fsck work properly and do it's thing. I.E. - fsck /dev/xxxx. But how do I know what to put in place of the xxxx?


Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Thank you!

[high_jeeves]

A few ideas:

1) If you are running dual boot, this could get hairy.
2) If you are running linux only, and your hard drives are IDE, it is PROBABLY going to be /dev/hda1
3) If you are running linux only, and your hard drives are SCSI, it is PROBABLY going to be /dev/sda1

A good way to check:

From the prompt you get, enter your root password.
Type "df"

You will get a list of filesystems, and their capacities, mount points, etc.

On the left side, you will see the various filesystems you have. you PROBABLY need to fsck the filesystem mounted at "/" (the root directory). From there, type "fsck <whichever /dev/XXXX is mounted at "/">"

This will then come up with a bunch of error messages.

I would highly recommend looking for a FAQ, HOWTO, or good website on fsck before I anwered Y/N to the error messages. Atleast that way, you will have an idea of what was done. Note: It is possible that you are pretty screwed here, sometimes these errors are minor, sometimes they can be fatal. Good Luck!

--Jeeves

[Cryonic]

fsck the whole drive manually, then you don't have to worry which partition it was. Hopefully the drive isn't too big or you will be waiting for quite a while. If you were using 7.2, there is a new partition type it supports, ext3. This is a journalled ext2 partition and saves a s**tload of time during the reboot in cases like this.

[yassar]

df aint gonna show nothing if the drive cannot be mounted. Considering it's redhat 7.0, i'd guess the partitions are ext2fs stuff. /dev/hda is your primary ide drive, with /dev/hda1 /dev/hda2 /dev/hda3 and so on being your partition names. /dev/sda is your first scsi device, with the same kind of partitioning structure. You need to create a rescue boot disk with e2fsck on it and just run e2fsck /dev/devicename# like e2fsck /dev/hda1

Try the "dmesg" command to show information about your system, what devices it contains etc. That's just the printout from a file that lives in /var/log

I hear people use this guy's rescue stuff often if you don't have a rescue disk of some sort already(but you do, don't you? hopefully?) - http://www.toms.net/rb/

Personally I just use debian's rescue disk for linux stuff.

[Hobo]

Thanks for the replies but now I'm a little more confused. Please pardon my apprant stupidity. :) First let me start with High-Jeeves reply.

I am indeed running a single IDE hard drive.
To quote your reply....

"On the left side, you will see the various filesystems you have. you PROBABLY need to fsck the filesystem mounted at "/" (the root directory). From there, type "fsck <whichever /dev/XXXX is mounted at "/">"



I'm a little confused as to what this means. Let me break it douwn...

You said "...you probably need to fsck the file system mounted at "/" (the root directory). - I'm not sure what you mean here. How do I fsck the files syetm mounted at "/"?



You also said "...type fsck <whichever /dev/XXXX is mounted at "/">.

What does this mean?


I *think* you are telling me I need to fsck the root directory. What (in simple idiot-newbie terms) is the command to do this? I've tried using just "fsck" and hitting enter, but nothing happens. I've tried using fsck/dev. And I've tried fsck -p -y /dev. Still nothing seems to happen.

Finally, when you say "fsck <whichever /dev/XXXX is mounted at "/">" what do you mean? I assume this is the command to use, but how do I know whichever/dev/XXX is mounted at "/"?

Sorry for my ignorance here. I'm searching, reading and learning but I'mn still pretty dumb at this Linux stuff.



Cryonic, you said to just manually run fsck on the whole drive. How do I do this? What is the command? FWIW I am using RD 7.0.


Thanks!!!!


Hobo

[Hobo]

Yassar,

You were replying just about the time I was replying to Jeeves and Cryonic. I couldn't find a rescue disk last night while I was working on it, but I was able to make a boot disk of version 7.2 (I am running 7.0). Will this boot disk do the trick?

I'm also heading out to check out the link you posted. Thanks!!!


Hobo

[yassar]

I think a rh boot disk would contain e2fsck and such, it'd be slightly annoying if it didn't. I know slackware and debian do, but I haven't used rh much at all..it Frightens me

good luck

[high_jeeves]

Hmm.. actually, when this happened to me, df did show where the drive is "supposed" to be mounted (although, it wasnt actually mounted).

To answer your question tho Hobo:

try just doing fsck /dev/hda

Also, upgrading to 7.2 might not fix anything without a reformat of the drive, can anyone with superior filesystem knowledge confirm this (this is not my linux strongpoint :))?

--Jeeves