I have Mandriva 2006. Out of the blue, I get a

"VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev hda1"

when I try to start the machine. Well, I start an install from the install-media just to get to the partition equipment, and this one shows hda1 as ext2, even if it was installed as ext3!?!? What has happened?

Second problem: since I don't seem to be able to boot the system, and since I don't seem to be able to mount this partition, I can't reach etc/lilo.conf to change it to match hda1 with ext2.

Third problem: when I run lsparts in Mandriva rescue, I get only hda2 which is swap and with correct size and hda3, which is /home partition, but this one is listed as 31 GB instead of 60 GB as installed. Hda1 is not seen at all, and that should have been /, and the reason for all of the other problems. How can this happen?

Unfortunately, I have 20 GB of data in /home, but since I can't boot the system, and I don't seem to be able to mount either hda or hdc in Mandrake Move, how can I rescue that data?

I'm practically a noob, so I guess I need an answer in big and easy understandable letters;-)

"when I try to start the machine. Well, I start an install from the install-media just to get to the partition equipment, and this one shows hda1 as ext2, even if it was installed as ext3!?!? What has happened?"

You might be able to fix the problem with fsck. Boot a live cd, make sure that /dev/hda1 is umounted, and run fsck:

umount /dev/hda1
fsck -t ext3 /dev/hda1

----------------------------
Steve Stites

Thank you for answer. I tried it, and it didn't seem like one single inode was correct. And no surprise; I still cannot mount it or boot the system.

When I think of it: I used to have Windows on this PC, and the PC ate the boot sequence in Windows two or three times too. Do I have a defective hard drive or something?

Ideas appreciated.

*sigh*

I installed Mandriva over hda1 without touching hda3 (my old /home where the data I hope to save is). Now I can boot the PC without problem, and I tried to run fsck on hda3, and this is the output:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[root@localhost maria]# fsck -t ext3 -n /dev/hda3
fsck 1.38 (30-Jun-2005)
e2fsck 1.38 (30-Jun-2005)
Warning: skipping journal recovery because doing a read-only filesystem check.
home contains a file system with errors, check forced.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Bad block inode has illegal block(s). Clear? no

Illegal block #0 (406970368) in bad block inode. IGNORED.
Illegal block #2 (381382656) in bad block inode. IGNORED.
Illegal block #3 (2147487744) in bad block inode. IGNORED.
Illegal block #4 (452050944) in bad block inode. IGNORED.
Programming error? block #4096 claimed for no reason in process_bad_block.
Illegal block #8 (1132156860) in bad block inode. IGNORED.
Illegal block #9 (1132156860) in bad block inode. IGNORED.
Illegal block #10 (1132156860) in bad block inode. IGNORED.
Root inode is not a directory. Clear? no

Journal is not regular file. Fix? no

Deleted inode 1261890 has zero dtime. Fix? no

Inodes that were part of a corrupted orphan linked list found. Fix? no

Inode 1262364 was part of the orphaned inode list. IGNORED.
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Entry '..' in ??? (1261569) has deleted/unused inode 2. Clear? no

Entry '..' in ??? (1261569) has an incorrect filetype (was 2, should be 0).
Fix? no

Entry '..' in ??? (8093697) has deleted/unused inode 2. Clear? no

Entry '..' in ??? (8093697) has an incorrect filetype (was 2, should be 0).
Fix? no

Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Root inode not allocated. Allocate? no

Cannot proceed without a root inode.
e2fsck: aborted
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What does this mean? I don't want to run this without the -n switch unless I know that this is the smartest way to rescue the data, and it's safe to assume that it will work.

"What does this mean? I don't want to run this without the -n switch unless I know that this is the smartest way to rescue the data, and it's safe to assume that it will work."

It means that you have errors in your file system. You should reply y to all of the questions and fsck will fix the problems.

"Inodes that were part of a corrupted orphan linked list found."

You may end up with some orphan files which fsck will place in lost+found on /dev/hda3. After you run fsck check the hda3 lost+found directory to see if any orphans were collected there.

-----------------------
Steve Stites