Should I be concerned about this message on bootup? I've read about this error in a few different places, and it seemed to have something to do with a kernel bug for 2.4.19 but I'm now running 2.4.20.

I've also read that my system is supposed to run e2fsck automatically on bootup if I have it marked as such in the /etc/fstab file. I have looked there and a copy of it is shown below.

Do I really need to run e2fsck myself? BTW, I'm running RH9 with ALL the latest updates.

Reboot #1

Mar 4 20:28:54 slaveone kernel: VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
Mar 4 20:28:54 slaveone kernel: Journalled Block Device driver loaded
Mar 4 20:28:54 slaveone kernel: EXT3-fs: INFO: recovery required on readonly filesystem.
Mar 4 20:28:54 slaveone kernel: EXT3-fs: write access will be enabled during recovery.
Mar 4 20:28:54 slaveone kernel: EXT3-fs: ide0(3,3): orphan cleanup on readonly fs
Mar 4 20:28:55 slaveone kernel: EXT3-fs: ide0(3,3): 4 orphan inodes deleted
Mar 4 20:28:55 slaveone kernel: EXT3-fs: recovery complete.
Mar 4 20:28:55 slaveone kernel: EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Mar 4 20:28:55 slaveone kernel: EXT3-fs warning: maximal mount count reached, running e2fsck is recommended
Mar 4 20:28:55 slaveone kernel: EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on sd(8,1), internal journal
Mar 4 20:28:55 slaveone kernel: EXT3-fs: recovery complete.
Mar 4 20:28:55 slaveone kernel: EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.


Reboot #2

Mar 4 20:33:31 slaveone kernel: EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Mar 4 20:33:31 slaveone kernel: EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,3), internal journal
Mar 4 20:33:31 slaveone kernel: EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,1), internal journal
Mar 4 20:33:31 slaveone kernel: EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Mar 4 20:33:31 slaveone kernel: Attached scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Mar 4 20:33:31 slaveone kernel: SCSI device sda: 120103200 512-byte hdwr sectors (61493 MB)
Mar 4 20:33:31 slaveone kernel: sda: sda1
Mar 4 20:33:31 slaveone kernel: EXT3-fs warning: maximal mount count reached, running e2fsck is recommended
Mar 4 20:33:31 slaveone kernel: EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on sd(8,1), internal journal
Mar 4 20:33:31 slaveone kernel: EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.

cat /etc/fstab

LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hda2 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0
/dev/sda1 /mnt/usbdrive ext3 defaults 0 0
192.168.0.60:/home /mnt/falcon/home nfs rw 0 0

fsck will run automatically on boot only on filesystems that are designated to be checked. Your usbdrive is the filesystem that is being flagged as max mount count reached and since your fstab entry has 0 for fsck it is not being checked at boot.

/dev/sda1 /mnt/usbdrive ext3 defaults 0 0

With out knowing what the max count was on each filesystem I assume that with reboot #1 that / was checked and that your usbdrive either wasn't connected or had not reached its max count. By reboot #2 the / and /boot are ok but the usbdrive now has reached its max mount count.