[arch-general] Mounted ext4 filesystem without journal

[Alexander Kapshuk]

I haven't had any replies to the email below so far.
Not sure if that's because that email didn't make it through to the mailing
list, even though it does show up here
<https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-general/2021-February/048597.html>,
or if it's because the problem I'm asking help for is unique and the
members of the list have nothing to suggest.

Thought I'd resend the original email just in case.
Any pointers would be appreciated.


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Alexander Kapshuk <alexander.kapshuk at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 4, 2021 at 5:40 PM
Subject: Mounted ext4 filesystem without journal
To: General Discussion about Arch Linux <arch-general at archlinux.org>


Most probably due to a buggy custom kernel, fsck on /dev/sda2, i.e the
root partition, failed with a rootfs prompt and an invitation to run
fsck on /dev/sda2 presented.
On having done that and rebooted, when performing fsck on /dev/sda2,
the system reported that:
/dev/sda2 had not been cleanly unmounted
0.4% non-contiguous blocks
mounting /dev/sda2 on real root
EXT4-fs (sda2) mounted filesystem without journal
Root device mounted successfully, but /sbin/init does not exist.

The wiki article on fsck troubleshooting,
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fsck#Troubleshooting, suggests
using tune2fs to write a new journal to /dev/sda2.
But it doesn't seem to be available when in rootfs.

Booting into the Arch Linux installation CD and mounting /dev/sda2
over /mnt reveals lost+found as the sole contents of the directory.
As an experiment, mounting /dev/sda1 over /mnt confirms the presence
of all the files there are on my boot partition.

Any pointers on how to proceed with this would be much appreciated.