Fsck
 

Hello,

Call me stupid, but I'm trying to run the FSCK utility to check my filesystems. Obviously, the disk has to be dismounted. However, this is what happens when I try to dismount the drive. . . .

[root@ASUSA7V266-E root]# umount /dev/hda3
umount: /: device is busy
[root@ASUSA7V266-E root]#

And if I don't try this, this is what happens:

[root@ASUSA7V266-E root]# fsck
fsck 1.32 (09-Nov-2002)
e2fsck 1.32 (09-Nov-2002)
/dev/hda3 is mounted.

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

Do you really want to continue (y/n)? no

Can someone help me here? What do I need to do? Thank you.

You can't unmount your root partition if you are using it.

Use RH CD1 to boot into rescue mode by typing:
linux rescue

at the boot prompt. Then you can mount/unmount, run fsck etc from there.

Okay, I got it to run. If there are problems, what would it say?

It would give you a list of any problems it could see.

Okay, this is what it said:

dev/hda 2 -boot:clean 45/____ files . . . blocks
dev/hda3 - clean ______files, _____blocks

I assume this means the filesystem is fine? Also, I have dev/hda4 as my swap partition. It won't check that, will it?

Clean means that it is OK.

As for swap - try using "badblocks".

What do you mean by that? What would I do to do as you're suggesting?

Look at the man page for full usage but basically:
badblocks /dev/hdaX