LinuxQuestions.org
Welcome to the most active Linux Forum on the web.
Go Back   LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - Newbie
User Name
Password
Linux - Newbie This Linux forum is for members that are new to Linux.
Just starting out and have a question? If it is not in the man pages or the how-to's this is the place!

Notices


Reply
  Search this Thread
Old 05-16-2003, 02:13 PM   #1
Jane Delawney
Member
 
Registered: Dec 2002
Location: UK
Distribution: Mandy 9.1, Knoppix :)
Posts: 146

Rep: Reputation: 15
Question WTF???? - seriously, this is driving me nuts :(


Some of you may have seen this on another board, but nobody there has offered a viable solution, so hopefully the mods will forgive me.

Sorry if this is a bit lengthy, but it really is driving me round
the bend...

A few days back I received my much awaited copy of Mandrake 9.1 and am hoping to have it installed soon.
Hoping...
Toward this end, I wanted to rearrange my hd partitions a little bit. I
have a 40mB hdd and I'm currently dual booting with WinMe - the OS this
computer came with - mostly because I'm undertaking an Open University
course and their materials are Win only (otherwise I'd have ditched M$ a
few months back).
sooo...I chose to use Partition Magic (PQmagic) 8.0 to rearrange partitions. A mistake? I'm hoping someone can tell me
Anyway, to get on with it: Current setup: hda1 WinMe OS; hda2 extended
partition; hda3 Mandrake 9.0 OS; hda4 Linux swap; hda5 Windows apps; hda6 Windows data; hda7 backup. All FAT32 save for the Mandy 9.0 and swap partitions - and you should know that perhaps misguidedly, months back when I installed Mandrake, I created the partition hda3 as *ext2* not ext3.
5-7 are of course logical partitions within the extended partition.
I wanted to reduce the side of hda1, move hda3, reduce the size of hda
5,6,7, to minimum and create two new ext3 logical partitions within the
extended partition to allow separate partitions for /home and /usr.
I fed the required moves to PQmagic and went for it - the first part went
well, hda1 is now half the size it was; but the process fell over when attempting to operate on hda3. I received a critical error message:
'unconnected directory inode 3090, will reboot, press any key to continue.'
Sooo...I rebooted, fired up Mandrake in failsafe mode, ran fsck /dev/hda3.
This (apparently) found and fixed the error. I then booted back into win,
tried the PQmagic thing again...
...and the same thing happened, save that now the unconnected directory inode is 3091...
To cut a long story short, I have now run fsck four times in three
hours, each time *apparently* repairing the error; save that on investigation, another error has appeared. So far I've had critical errors
involving directory inodes 3090, 3091, 3092...(well I could go on, but it
would get monotonous).
Then, again while in failsafe mode, I ran

# ls -i | less /*

Thinking about it and with a prompt from someone on another board I should have put a grep 309* in there somewhere, but i didn't and thus had great fun paging through quite a bit of output, and much information about inodes, but there was no sign of any of the offending numbers.

So what have I done wrong, or what might be the problem here? Is it that I'm trying to use a DOS program to move a Linux partition? (PQmagic created the partition in the first place, with no problem). Is it my fault for using ext2 rather than ext3 originally? Or is it something else? And if so,
does anyone have any suggestion what it might be, or what I might do about it?
(OK, I know: run Mandy 9.1's partition manager....I haven't tried that yet.
Mainly because I know and love PQmagic and it does what it says on the tin - moves partitions around without losing data - and I don't know if this is
likely to be the case with Mandy's or any other Linux's partition manager.

And of course there's the sledgehammer approach...nuke the entire drive and start over...and don't think I haven't been tempted. But that's kind of a
MS-y approach, and I'd rather troubleshoot if possible.)

All suggestions gratefully received!

cheers

jd

PS Despite the error messages and so forth, everything still works, I have
access to both my OS's, and Mandrake doesn't even report any errors on boot, let alone force a fsck at boot time. But when I force a fsck it
*does* find the 'error' (if it is an error). Weird or what?
 
Old 05-16-2003, 03:32 PM   #2
jt1020
Member
 
Registered: Apr 2003
Location: root@localhost
Distribution: Fedora Core 5, Ubuntu, Debian
Posts: 537

Rep: Reputation: 30
I use Partition Magic to partition my HD and resize both my dos and Linux partition... although i didn't use Partition Magic when i installed Linux... but it should be able to resize the partition of Linux and dos without a hitch.... (Partition Magic 8 not the older versions)

I think you should've used ext 3 rather than ext2....

Its always a good idea to install Linux in the last partition, trust me everything will be alot better that way....

Last edited by jt1020; 05-16-2003 at 03:35 PM.
 
Old 05-17-2003, 07:24 PM   #3
Jane Delawney
Member
 
Registered: Dec 2002
Location: UK
Distribution: Mandy 9.1, Knoppix :)
Posts: 146

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 15
OK - still stuck. Is there anyone out there who can tell me at least what the 'unconnected directory inode' error message means? I suspect at some point I must have killed off a process without killing all its child processes, and one of those is making the filesystem appear corrupted, but how do I find out what this leftover 'thing' is and how to kill it? ps aux gives no relevant information.

And I tried running

# ls -i /* | grep 309 | less

and found a reference, at least: the output included the line:

3092 #3092/

where the first 3092 is the inode no. and the remainder is -apparently - the file or directory that is associated with that inode. I never came across a directory name starting with # before....

Not very informative to me at my current stage.

Please, can any guru out there suggest what might be happening, or what I can do next to investigate and solve the problem? As it is, neither PQmagic nor the Mandrake partitioning tool will touch my hda3 because they both think the partition's current filesystem is corrupted, but (a) the OS on that partition loads and runs without a problem and (b) fsck-ing the drive merely shifts the problem over a bit, so to speak, and produces an error message about the 'next' (numerically speaking) inode.

As things are at the moment, I can either fdisk the entire drive and reinstall everything, or try to ignore hda3, forget about it, and install Mandrake 9.1 (or whatever distro I decide to try next) somewhere else.

On the bright side at least the latter option would mean that I would still have a working Linux to use if Mandy 9.1 or Slack (which I'm considering) didn't play ball. But that's not really what I'm trying to do here

many thanks in advance


jd
 
Old 05-17-2003, 07:47 PM   #4
MasterC
LQ Guru
 
Registered: Mar 2002
Location: Salt Lake City, UT - USA
Distribution: Gentoo ; LFS ; Kubuntu ; CentOS ; Raspbian
Posts: 12,613

Rep: Reputation: 69
Wow, if nothing else I commend you on your detailed description and your dedication to partitioning!

Ok, first off, the thing bugging me most is that you can change to ext3 at any point:
tune2fs -j /dev/hda3

Second, when you run fsck how do you run it? Just blanket with no delimiters, or which options are you including?

I've seen too many drives get "dorked" by PM that I don't suggest using any more for resizing linux partitions. That's what parted is for ( www.freshmeat.net ), and what fdisk is for. Since these are linux partitions, you really don't have to worry too much about data getting corrupted from resizing partitions, the data is strung all over the drive like a wanna be filesystem might do.

If you really wanted to, and you don't get everything worked out, I'd say botch the drives, fdisk the hell outta them, start clean and go from there. It appears now that you are having a much better understanding of what you want your drive layout to be, and although it's quite possible to get it there without installing, you might screw something up along the way. However, I guess I worst this will just mean doing the fdisk at that time instead.

So it's really up to you, do you wanna learn parted, fsck commands, and fdisk commands til your fingers bleed, and maybe fix your setup; or do you just want to get on with it? I'd personally go with the first choice since I run the slight chance of fixing my problem without re-installing (I dread that).

Cool
 
Old 05-17-2003, 07:48 PM   #5
quietguy47
Member
 
Registered: Mar 2003
Location: Everett
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 805

Rep: Reputation: 35
I hope this is helpful Jane http://mm.iit.uni-miskolc.hu/Data/te...AG/node92.html
 
Old 05-17-2003, 08:45 PM   #6
Jane Delawney
Member
 
Registered: Dec 2002
Location: UK
Distribution: Mandy 9.1, Knoppix :)
Posts: 146

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 15
Interesting and helpful page, Quietguy. Thanks for your input.

jd
 
Old 05-17-2003, 09:02 PM   #7
Jane Delawney
Member
 
Registered: Dec 2002
Location: UK
Distribution: Mandy 9.1, Knoppix :)
Posts: 146

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 15
Quote:
Originally posted by MasterC
[B]

Ok, first off, the thing bugging me most is that you can change to ext3 at any point:
tune2fs -j /dev/hda3
This was actually the single useful thing I got from the other board I mentioned - Had a vague memory of a command that would do just this, and couldn't recall the syntax. However (duhh) I haven't tried it yet. But I intend to. Thanks for reminding me. BTW I gather from this that you think swapping to ext3 would be of help with the problem I'm having?

Quote:
Second, when you run fsck how do you run it? Just blanket with no delimiters, or which options are you including?
Before using it (other than the times I've been forced to by Mandrake :P) I checked out man fsck and none of the options seemed relevant. So I simply ran

# fsck /dev/hda3

It took a while but the exit status was 1 ie file system errors corrected in each case.

Quote:
I've seen too many drives get "dorked" by PM that I don't suggest using any more for resizing linux partitions. That's what parted is for ( www.freshmeat.net ), and what fdisk is for. Since these are linux partitions, you really don't have to worry too much about data getting corrupted from resizing partitions, the data is strung all over the drive like a wanna be filesystem might do.
I suppose my problem is that I've had a filesystem completely borked by a.n. other utility in the past and I've never had any difficulty with PM (until now). But as I mentioned I think, I'm only too well aware that it's a DOS program and thus might not be appropriate for what i'm trying to do now. I'm more than willing to investigate other possibilities, since -

Quote:
you are having a much better understanding of what you want your drive layout to be, and although it's quite possible to get it there without installing, you might screw something up along the way. However, I guess I worst this will just mean doing the fdisk at that time instead.
- as you say, the worst that can happen is that I'll have to start over. (unless my current problem is a sign that the hdd is about to die of course - it makes strange noises sometimes )

Quote:
So it's really up to you, do you wanna learn parted, fsck commands, and fdisk commands til your fingers bleed, and maybe fix your setup;
Actually it's quite possible I want to do exactly that...it'll be a learning experience whatever happens - and yes I agree, reinstalling is a nightmare (and feels so M$-y somehow). But I'd still love to know what that error message means (approximately anyway), since I can't find anything directly relevant anywhere - is my wild guess (about an orphaned process) likely to be anything near right?

anyway, I've gone on long enough - You've been very helpful MasterC - thanks for advice and encouragement, can't get over how friendly this board is for newbs with problems.

cheers

jd
 
Old 05-17-2003, 09:44 PM   #8
jailbait
LQ Guru
 
Registered: Feb 2003
Location: Virginia, USA
Distribution: Debian 12
Posts: 8,334

Rep: Reputation: 547Reputation: 547Reputation: 547Reputation: 547Reputation: 547Reputation: 547
fsck problems

In reading through the ins and outs of this problem I get the impression that you are running fsck against a mounted file system. If you do so fsck will give you error messages because there is no dismounted cleanly record.

I suggest that you use a rescue system to run fsck against a dismounted /dev/hde3 and see what happens.
 
Old 05-17-2003, 10:09 PM   #9
MasterC
LQ Guru
 
Registered: Mar 2002
Location: Salt Lake City, UT - USA
Distribution: Gentoo ; LFS ; Kubuntu ; CentOS ; Raspbian
Posts: 12,613

Rep: Reputation: 69
Also, for orphaned processes you can look in lost+found directory in any directory (where the orphaned file/process was) AFAIK. I don't know if it's ext3 specific, but I do know I get them from time to time and delete them when I get around to it

Good Luck whatever you decide to do, and I hope that you find something to fix your problem (even though I still blame PM )

Cool
 
  


Reply


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off



Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Help - it's driving me nuts! n4ogl Linux - Newbie 4 11-13-2005 09:28 PM
Apache driving me nuts! metaldude Linux - Newbie 2 07-24-2005 06:45 AM
Driving me nuts!! jappstam12345 Linux - Newbie 7 03-11-2005 05:51 PM
This is driving me nuts! dareino Fedora 4 06-30-2004 02:17 AM
driving me nuts!!! ihatebillgates Linux - Newbie 6 12-12-2003 07:03 AM

LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - Newbie

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 09:00 AM.

Main Menu
Advertisement
My LQ
Write for LQ
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute content, let us know.
Main Menu
Syndicate
RSS1  Latest Threads
RSS1  LQ News
Twitter: @linuxquestions
Open Source Consulting | Domain Registration