[gentoo-user] [OT] Problem with disk: cannot mount as ext3 but yes as ext2 ???

[gentoo-user] [OT] Problem with disk: cannot mount as ext3 but yes as ext2 ???

[Gregory SACRE]

Hello,


I had a hard disk attached on an old RedHat PC formatted and mounted
as ext3 filesystem.
I removed the hard disk from the PC and plugged it in my Gentoo box. I
tried to mount it as ext3 file system and got this error:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| # mount -t ext3 /dev/hdd1 /jukebox
| mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hdd1,
|        missing codepage or other error
|        In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
|        dmesg | tail  or so
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I then tried to see the partition type with fdisk:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Command (m for help): p
|
| Disk /dev/hdd: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
| 16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 158816 cylinders
| Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
|
|    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
| /dev/hdd1               1      158816    80043232+  83  Linux
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My next step was to try to repair it with fsck.ext3:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| fsck.ext3 -p /dev/hdd
| fsck.ext3: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/hdd
| /dev/hdd:
| 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>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I tried what was written with e2fsck:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| e2fsck -b 8193 /dev/hdd
| e2fsck 1.39 (29-May-2006)
| e2fsck: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/hdd
|
| 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>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After googling for a while, and not really finding an answer, I tried
to mount it as readonly, and because of a typo, I mounted it as
ext2... and it worked!!! I tried then to mount it normally, not
anymore as read-only with ext2 format... and it worked!!!
So my first question is: how come?
I'm sure the filetype is ext3 as it can be seen in my old fstab:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| [...]
| /dev/hdb5               swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
| #/dev/hdc1               /jukebox               ext3    defaults
   1 1    --> this is the one ;-)
| [...]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I thought maybe I could try to repair it with the normal fsck:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| fsck /dev/hdd1
| fsck 1.39 (29-May-2006)
| e2fsck 1.39 (29-May-2006)
| /dev/hdd1: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short
read while reading block 525
|
| /dev/hdd1: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short
read reading journal superblock
|
| fsck.ext3: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short
read while checking ext3 journal for /dev/hdd1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is there anything wrong with my hardware? Is it a super-block problem?
Is there a way to solve it?

Thank you in advance!

Greg
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Problem with disk: cannot mount as ext3 but yes as ext2 ???

[Walter Dnes]

On Fri, Oct 06, 2006 at 08:29:40AM +0200, Gregory SACRE wrote

> Is there anything wrong with my hardware? Is it a super-block problem?
> Is there a way to solve it?
> 
> Thank you in advance!

  This is not intended as an insult, but let's start at square 1.  In
"make menuconfig", have you enabled...
"Ext3 journalling file system support"

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> In linux /sbin/init is Job #1
My musings on technology and security at http://techsec.blog.ca
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Problem with disk: cannot mount as ext3 but yes as ext2 ???

[Gregory SACRE]

On 10/13/06, Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 06, 2006 at 08:29:40AM +0200, Gregory SACRE wrote
>
> > Is there anything wrong with my hardware? Is it a super-block problem?
> > Is there a way to solve it?
> >
> > Thank you in advance!
>
>   This is not intended as an insult, but let's start at square 1.  In
> "make menuconfig", have you enabled...
> "Ext3 journalling file system support"

Yes I did as the 2 other hard disks are of ext3 format.

Other question about my problem: is it possible that it would be a
sector problem, and that those sectors would contain the journaling of
ext3? And that would be the reason why I can mount it as ext2 and not
ext3?
And therefore, do I need to perform a low level format in order to
bring everything as new?
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Problem with disk: cannot mount as ext3 but yes as ext2 ???

[Benno Schulenberg]

Gregory SACRE wrote:
> Other question about my problem: is it possible that it would be
> a sector problem, and that those sectors would contain the
> journaling of ext3?

Yes, it looks like it.  :(

> And that would be the reason why I can mount 
> it as ext2 and not ext3?

No.  An ext3 filesystem can always be mounted as ext2: it then 
simply ignores the journal.

> And therefore, do I need to perform a low level format in order
> to bring everything as new?

No.  If it's really a sector problem, throw the disk away: as soon 
as a disk starts having trouble reading sectors, it is near death.

Have you tried putting the disk back into the old machine?  If the 
error occurs there too, the disk got damaged during the transition. 
If not, then Red Hat maybe uses some specially tweaked ext3 format?

Did you do though what the very first error message told you to try: 
'dmesg | tail'?  Also look in /var/log/messages.  Are there any 
lines about errors while accessing /dev/hdd?

Benno
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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Problem with disk: cannot mount as ext3 but yes as ext2 ???

[Mark Shields]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 4380 bytes --]

On 10/6/06, Gregory SACRE <gregory.sacre@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
>
> I had a hard disk attached on an old RedHat PC formatted and mounted
> as ext3 filesystem.
> I removed the hard disk from the PC and plugged it in my Gentoo box. I
> tried to mount it as ext3 file system and got this error:
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> | # mount -t ext3 /dev/hdd1 /jukebox
> | mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hdd1,
> |        missing codepage or other error
> |        In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
> |        dmesg | tail  or so
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I then tried to see the partition type with fdisk:
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> | Command (m for help): p
> |
> | Disk /dev/hdd: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
> | 16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 158816 cylinders
> | Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
> |
> |    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> | /dev/hdd1               1      158816    80043232+  83  Linux
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> My next step was to try to repair it with fsck.ext3:
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> | fsck.ext3 -p /dev/hdd
> | fsck.ext3: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/hdd
> | /dev/hdd:
> | 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>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I tried what was written with e2fsck:
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> | e2fsck -b 8193 /dev/hdd
> | e2fsck 1.39 (29-May-2006)
> | e2fsck: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/hdd
> |
> | 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>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> After googling for a while, and not really finding an answer, I tried
> to mount it as readonly, and because of a typo, I mounted it as
> ext2... and it worked!!! I tried then to mount it normally, not
> anymore as read-only with ext2 format... and it worked!!!
> So my first question is: how come?
> I'm sure the filetype is ext3 as it can be seen in my old fstab:
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> | [...]
> | /dev/hdb5
> swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
> | #/dev/hdc1               /jukebox               ext3    defaults
>    1 1    --> this is the one ;-)
> | [...]
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I thought maybe I could try to repair it with the normal fsck:
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> | fsck /dev/hdd1
> | fsck 1.39 (29-May-2006)
> | e2fsck 1.39 (29-May-2006)
> | /dev/hdd1: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short
> read while reading block 525
> |
> | /dev/hdd1: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short
> read reading journal superblock
> |
> | fsck.ext3: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short
> read while checking ext3 journal for /dev/hdd1
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Is there anything wrong with my hardware? Is it a super-block problem?
> Is there a way to solve it?
>
> Thank you in advance!
>
> Greg
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>
Have you looked into tune2fs?  I converted an ext2 to an ext3 with it by
running tune2fs -j /dev/sda9, you might want to see if that utility can
provide any assistance.

-- 
- Mark Shields

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