While you're in "maintenance mode" you should be able to modify /etc/fstab to remove the entry for the volume that is failing. That will allow you to get your system up the rest of the way and have your normal set of tools available to look at/fix the problem.
If you're concerned about losing data, use ext3, not ext2. The ext3 file system is a journaling one, and ext2 is not. Even if you're not concerned about losing data, still use ext3. The amount of time it takes to fsck a very large ext2 file system can get prohibitive, significantly delaying getting your system back up. Mark Post -----Original Message----- From: Ken Vance [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 5:39 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: bad magic number in super-block Hi, I was installing an Oracle DB, and the system hung during one of the last steps, "clone database creation in progress". The system would no longer respond, so I had to force the linux image. Now the system will not restart due to a bad magic number on one of the logical volume packs. I tried to run the e2fsck to give it a new magic number, but it keeps giving the same message. Is there any way to recover the system, or do I have to go back to the last backup, and start again? Hopefully there is a way around this, since if we go into production with z/VM linux images, we will need a way to recover if the machine goes down without clean shutdowns on the images. Thanks, Ken Vance Amadeus Here is the console log: <-------------reiserfsck, 2001-------------> reiserfsprogs 3.x.0k-pre8 /dev/LVOL1/LV1: clean, 24551/1077120 files, 1131549/2150400 blocks fsck.ext2: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/dasdc1 (null): 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 e2fsck with an alternate superblock: e2fsck -b 8193 <device> fsck.ext2 /dev/dasdc1 failed (status 8)! Run it manually! /dev/LVOL1/LV1: clean, 24551/1077120 files, 1131549/2150400 blocks /dev/LVOL1/LV1: clean, 24551/1077120 files, 1131549/2150400 blocks /dev/LVOL1/LV1: clean, 24551/1077120 files, 1131549/2150400 blocks /dev/LVOL1/LV1: clean, 24551/1077120 files, 1131549/2150400 blocks /dev/LVOL1/LV1: clean, 24551/1077120 files, 1131549/2150400 blocks ..failed fsck failed. Please repair manually and reboot. The root file system is currently mounted read-only. To remount it read-write do: bash# mount -n -o remount,rw / Attention: Only CONTROL-D will reboot the system in this maintanance mode. shutdown or reboot will not work. Give root password to login:
