Boot hangs at ext3 journal recovery

Wocky · 08-30-2006, 03:22 AM

I was having some trouble using my system (nothing happened - no logins, running programs stopped, etc. Ping from remote machines still worked; filesystems exported from this system and mounted on remote systems were still accessible from the remote machines) so I rebooted. The local filesystems were checked; one of them (200GB Seagate with a single ext3 fs on it) came up "/dev/hdg1: Recovering journal" and everything stopped. This was about two hours ago. The HDD access light is on full (unblinking).

Previously, I've found that if there's a power failure during a fsck, the disk becomes unusable - I've got two HDDs that I can't get any system to recognise (as *anything*).

If I reboot, am I likely to do any damage to my HDD (which has a lot of irreplacable data on it, and is not backed up...)

I'm running kernel version 2.4.20 with xfs patches; it was originally a redhat 7.2 system, but I've changed almost everything. It's on a dual-processor 500MHz celeron box.

Thanks
Wocky

youngri · 08-30-2006, 08:29 PM

Hi,

Seeing as you have no backup, I would probably see what I can recover by booting from a live cd and copying data off this machine.

Can you clarify what you mean by

"I've got two HDDs that I can't get any system to recognise (as *anything*)."

Do you mean from a BIOS point of view or the operating system?

Richard

Wocky · 08-30-2006, 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by youngri

Can you clarify what you mean by

"I've got two HDDs that I can't get any system to recognise (as *anything*)."

Do you mean from a BIOS point of view or the operating system?

The BIOS doesn't find them; fdisk says the device is invalid. As far as I can tell the firmware has been damaged, though how fsck could have done this is uncertain (to me, anyway.)

As for the current problem, I rebooted, and recovered the disk. I'm now in the process of backing the data up.

Wocky

youngri · 08-30-2006, 10:00 PM

Just my opinion,

It sounds like your hard disk was on its way out anyway.

fsck may simply have been a casualty.

syg00 · 08-30-2006, 10:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wocky

... am I likely to do any damage to my HDD (which has a lot of irreplacable data on it, and is not backed up...)

You are joking I hope.

Last time I lost a couple of drives like that was a power surge during a storm - it blew straight past my crappy UPS.
Tried all the "off the wall" remedies like sticking them in a freezer for the night. Nothing worked. They joined the pile of dead-uns' in the corner - a couple of S-ATA disks that seemed to have over-heated (before I upped the fans in the box).

I'd say you are up a creek without a paddle.