e2fsck on a mounted filesystem

glock19 · 07-09-2003, 04:21 PM

What is the recommended way to run e2fsck?

Is it ok to switch to runlevel 1 and then run the e2fsck on the mounted root partition? I get this big warning:

WARNING!!! Running e2fsck on a mounted filesystem may cause SEVERE filesystem damage.

That sounds really scary. So what do you guys think, is it ok to drop to runlevel 1 and do the e2fsck on the mounted partition despite this warning message?

If not, then how would you recommend doing it, by booting to a linux floppy?

contrasutra · 07-09-2003, 05:10 PM

Ive done it in Runlevel 1 and never had a problem, but I know lots of people that have trashed their systems like that. So do be careful.

The best thing I could think of is to find a floppy/cd based distro and do it from there, making sure the harddrive isn't mounted.

I personally use Knoppix, because thats what I have lying around.

lfur · 07-09-2003, 07:12 PM

You could try (well, this doesn't use e2fsck but fsck) which checks your entire disk (except swap) on boot time.

(as root ofcourse)
shutdown -Fr now

(-F stands for force fsck check and -r for reboot)