I run a Desktop PC with Debian 11 and an AMD Ryzen CPU.

It has been running okay, but now I have seen the following message :-

kernel:[2083218.760570] EXT4-fs (dm-0): failed to convert unwritten
extents to written extents -- potential data loss! (inode 394119, error
-30)

This happened when running the Opera browser.

It was subsequently discovered that I could not open the Opera or Chrome browsers,

Firefox could be run but seemed to run in a reduced mode and could not open or download email files.

An attempt was then made to reboot the PC, but this failed :-

The reboot error says:

/dev/mapper/vgpiglit-root contains a file system with errors, check
forced.
Inodes that were a part of a corrupted orphan linked lost found.
/dev/mapper/vgpiglit-root : UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck
manually.(i.e .,
without -a or -p options). fsck exited with status code 4. The root
filesystem on /dev/mapper/vgpiglit-root requires a manual fsck

There is then a flashing prompt after "(initramfs)".

URGENT. Can anyone please help (possibly over the phone) with rebooting the PC.as much work is needed on computer files over the next few days.
Attempts have been made to contact people who might be able to help, but no contacts made. People may be away due to it being a Holiday weekend.

The error messages are telling that there is a potential issue with the file system on the root partition.

You could try booting into safe mode (that should be an option in the GRUB boot menu, although it might use some other term such as repair or maintenance), and then fscking the partitions. If you can't boot into safe mode, you could try booting into a Live USB/CD of something and fscking the partitions.

Here's more about the fsck command: https://linuxhandbook.com/fsck-command/

Also, once you get into the system, it would probably be a good idea to back up any crucial data to external media, just in case . . . .

Thanks very much for your reply.

I subsequently found this article :-

https://www.shellhacks.com/busybox-i...t-problem-fix/

which seems to offer a solution regarding a reboot.

I recognise that other error messages I received indicate a possibly failing HDD (I use HDDs rather than SSDs) or maybe even a RAM problem.

I ran the fsck command as suggested in the shellbacks article I.e.

fsck -y /dev/mapper/vgpiglit-root

This repaired the root filesystem and enabled the PC to be rebooted.

The problem now is to discover which component produced the EXT4-ps data error message.

You can check your disks with https://linux.die.net/man/8/smartctl

Logs is always the place to start. If that inode is stil assigned (i.e. the fsck didn't free it) try this - might work, might barf as before ....Edit: Maybe I should add this is simply a display command to see if we can ascertain what file has (had) that inode allocated.