[SOLVED] Disk Question for hardware heads.

business_kid · 04-17-2022, 05:32 AM

I've recently found a load of orphaned inodes on a partition. Rather than rely on the repair, I restored a backup.

Is there a way to relate those inodes to files or directories which can cut down the amount of rewriting and allow me to be a bit more diagnostic about the files?

hazel · 04-17-2022, 06:49 AM

There's a libc function called readdir which will read out directory entries. It returns structures that have an inode number as the first field and a filename as the last. You could write a little program that runs this function on each directory in turn and picks up the filenames corresponding to the inodes. Maybe write them into a file on another partition.

pan64 · 04-17-2022, 08:23 AM

1. how do you know you have orphaned inodes?
2. did you try to run fsck -N on that filesystem?
3. you can use testdisk or photorec or similar to recover lost files.

business_kid · 04-18-2022, 04:52 AM

Thanks, hazel, but a libc function isn't a lot of use unless I can use it!
What you're effectively telling me is that no program uses it?

@pan64: I don't see a path to an answer in your questions, but as you ask:

e2fsck told me.
Yes, it doesn't do much.
I don't need to, e2fsck fixed them.

syg00 · 04-18-2022, 05:10 AM

By definition, orphans aren't related to any current non-deleted entity. Recovering them is moot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

I don't need to, e2fsck fixed them.

So why do you care ?.

business_kid · 04-18-2022, 03:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

By definition, orphans aren't related to any current non-deleted entity. Recovering them is moot.So why do you care ?.

Because I lost sound in my RazPi 4 overnight. I fsck'ed the disk, found orphaned inodes, but still no sound. I restored a backup, but still no sound. But if I use an sdcard instead of disk drive, I have sound

SlowCoder · 04-18-2022, 03:42 PM

You peaked my interest here, so I did a little bit of reading. In particular, https://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...orphaned-inode
I don't know if this does anything for you, but ...

Quote:

An orphaned inode is a file that is “semi-deleted”: it has no more directory entry, but it's still open in some process, so the data is still present on the disk. When the last process that has this file open closes it, the file will be fully deleted and the orphaned inode will disappear.

pan64 · 04-19-2022, 12:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

Because I lost sound in my RazPi 4 overnight. I fsck'ed the disk, found orphaned inodes, but still no sound. I restored a backup, but still no sound. But if I use an sdcard instead of disk drive, I have sound

Looks like your installation is corrupted. Probably would be better to save important data (including configs) and reinstall. Recovering is not that simple [sometimes].
Or just compare the content on the sdcard and disk drive.

business_kid · 04-19-2022, 06:21 AM

The cause of this was (100%) a rough power down.

I deleted the filesystems (/boot & / but not /home). I remade the filesystems, and restored a backup again.

I have a little progress, but no sound.

In pavucontrol, there's a sort of 'VU Meter' on the "Playback" & "Output Devices" tabs. Now I have sound on the "Playback" tab, but not the "Output Devices." Is that in the least way diagnostic? Is it a firmware issue?

BTW, I'm recovering from Covid and am back running with full sound on the sdcard.

business_kid · 04-24-2022, 01:57 PM

Ok, I FINALLY got this.

I've done disk restores, etc. and still ended up exactly where I was - no sound.

I had vu displays in pavucontrol/playback, but none in output devices. I was trawling through that, and discovered a 3rd icon to the left of the lock symbol. I clicked on it, and sound was restored. It was some sort of mute thing.

I'm mentally exhausted, but it's sorted.

EDIT: As soon asw I clicked on this unlabelled icon, it vanished. I'm sure I passed it many times without noticing it.