[arch-general] Mounted ext4 filesystem without journal

[Alexander Kapshuk]

On Sun, Feb 7, 2021 at 8:24 PM Erich Eckner via arch-general
<arch-general at lists.archlinux.org> wrote:
>
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> Hi,
>
> On Sun, 7 Feb 2021, Alexander Kapshuk via arch-general wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> looks, like fsck emptied your disk (or at least the directory structure is
> gone) - most probably, because it was already severely damaged before. Why
> do you suspect, your kernel has anything to do with it? I would rather
> suspect a hardware error of some kind (/dev/sda is a plain ssd or hdd -
> not some raid or cryptdevice, I assume).
>
I had fsck complain about /dev/sda2 on two machines on booting the
same version of linux-next. Fsck was able to fix the errors reported
on one machine, but not on the other.
/dev/sda is a hdd.

> >
> > 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.
>
> Lost inodes end up in lost+found/ when you run fsck (at least, that's,
> what has happened to me before). If nothing is left outside of
> lost+found/, I suggest:
>
> 1. Use your last backup. - You do have a backup, right? If not:
>
> 2. copy lost+found/ somewhere safe, do a fresh install, and have a look at
> your saved inodes for valuable content (not sure, if there are some tools
> to help you with skimming through lots of unnamed inodes - usually at
> least *one* of my backups was good enough for me in the past).
>
> >
> > Any pointers on how to proceed with this would be much appreciated.
> >
>
> Use backups :-)
>
> regards,
> Erich
>

Thanks for your feedback.

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