Need assistance with fixing filesystem corruption (ext3-fs group descriptor corrupted, no inittab)

Arodef · 03-03-2011, 10:17 PM

When I rebooted my system (RHEL 5.3 x86_64), I got the following error when it was booting up:

Code:

Mounting root filesystem.
EXT3-fs Error (device dm-0): ext3_check_descriptors: Block bitmap for group 3328 not in group (block 33188)!
EXT3-fs: group descriptors corrupted!
mount: error mounting /dev/root on /sysroot as ext3: invalid argument
...

Full screenshot of the bootup error messages here: previous bootup error

So to try and fix this, I booted from the OS disk and did a linux rescue.

Here's some of the results of the commands I did:

Code:

sh-3.2# lvm lvchange -ay /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
sh-3.2# lvm lvscan
  ACTIVE             '/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00/' [1.36 TB] inherit
  inactive           '/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01/' [1.94 GB] inherit
sh-3.2# fsck -yfv /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00

FYI: / is mounted on LogVol00, swap is LogVol01.

Here's a screenshot of the output from fsck after it's done, notice it says 0 bad blocks but the system was modified:fsck results

I then reboot but now I get the errors:

Code:

Setting up new root fs
no fstab.sys, mounting internal defaults
...
INIT: No inittab file found

Full screenshot of the startup errors I get now here: current bootup error

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can fix this? Was the fsck I did initially the correct thing to do to fix that initial group descriptor error or did I make things worse? I really need to get this system up so any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

syg00 · 03-03-2011, 10:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arodef

Was the fsck I did initially the correct thing to do to fix that initial group descriptor error

Yes, you didn't have any option (other than a full restore of course)

Quote:

... or did I make things worse?

Possibly.
As I am continually warning on these fora, fsck is a filesystem integrity tool, not necessarily a data/file integrity tool. You didn't do anything wrong, but there is no way to know if any corruption (of data) occurs during fsck. Or to what.
inittab may be the only thing affected - or not. In such cases I rebuild the system - either totally, or from a recent backup.