On Sat, 08 Jan 2000, you wrote:
> Hi....I'm writing this in outlook express on my NT box. Why?! Because my
> Mandrake 6.1 root filesystem won't mount (so Mandrake won't boot) and won't
> even return enough info to e2fsk when it's run, to get worked on. Here's
> what it says (I sure wish I could paste this instead of typing it):
>
> 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 (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
> is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsk with an alternate superblock:
> e2fsk -b 8193 <device>
>
> ....so when I run (from tomsrtbt or Peanut, I've tried both) 'e2fsk -b 8193
> ssda7' (or 16385 or 24577....etc.) I get exactly the same error message as
> above. I've run the sequence of possible alternate superblock locations up
> to a factor of 21, with no luck, just the same error message each time.
>
> So does anybody have any suggestions on what further staeps I might take to
> attempt to recover this partition?
>
>From any valid linux boot / rescue disk (Tom's or Peanut) do an
"fdisk" and see what your partitions are. I'm *guessing* you
specified a bad partition. That's typically what the above error
message *really* means -- basically you're trying to mount a
partition that doesn't exist. Check what it *really* is, mount your
REAL / partition, "chroot" to the *real* / partition and then edit
your /etc/lilo.conf, write the changed lilo with /sbin/lilo and
reboot.
John
