I just recently did a fresh install of slackware 10.0 and solved my sound issues. So i thought i would listen to some mp3's I have stored on one of my ntfs partitions. Doing so locked Slackware totally up.
I had to hit reset button on box.
When I tried to go back to Slackware i got an error message saying there were bad or duplicate blocks on the ext2 partition.
It mentioned something about doing fchk or something close manually, but i do not know how.
Any help?

Desperate and seriously considering Mandrake!

SG_1

Well, first off, EXT2 was a bad choice. You should have chosen ReiserFS, you wouldn't have had this problem (the file system problem, anyway).

Anyway, after it gives you that error message, does it show you a password prompt so that you can login?

No it doesn't. Great so all the work i did today in getting Slackware re-installed and upgraded again is lost?!

Oi Vei!

And people say Windows is unstable, I tell ya I have never had the problems with windows that Linux/Slackware has thrown at me in the last 2 days!

I do not wish to start a war here, but seems that there isn't much use for Linux for someone who doesn't speak its language.

I will be redoing the install again i guess , but with that other file system instead of ext2.

SG_1

No, you certainly don't have to reinstall.

There are a few options here.

Probably the easiest would be to simply boot to the Slackware installation disk, and then enter in the line it shows in the middle of the screen (where it says this disk could be used to boot a system in a pinch). Make sure that the last letters are "ro" I am pretty sure they are, but I am not 100% sure.

Then (after the machine starts up and you login), run fsck on the partition that it gave you the error on (or all of them , just to be safe). After that, reboot your machine normally, and you should be fine.

Now, you can't (as far as I know) directly convert EXT2 to ReiserFS, so you have a problem there.

However, you can convert EXT2 to EXT3, and that will give you most of the benefits that ReiserFS would.

Ok, I am a little calmer now after reading your last post and am asking myself and you just what the benefits are of one file system over the other?

Please keep in mind I am very new to Linux in general.

I have been a Windows / Dos user for the last 12+ years.

I am not used to these kinds of issues with a newly installed OS.

SG_1

Well, the main benefit of EXT3 or Reiser is that they can recover gracefully from an abrupt shutdown like what happened when you had to restart your machine with the front button.

If you were using either of those file systems, you probably wouldn't have had any problem when you started back up.

The main difference between EXT3 and Reiser is that EXT3 is basically a modified version of EXT2, while Reiser was built from the ground up as it's own file system.

That is why I generally prefer Reiser. Plus it is also supposed to be a bit faster, but it is not much of a big deal with every-day usage.

But many people also prefer EXT3, so it is really a matter of opinion.

Just to point out something, Be it Windows or Linux, any operating system can be unstable if you dont know what you're doing...

It took me two months to get my box stable again coz of alot of problems here and there. And as for windows, XP is very stable nowadays (again, if you know what you're doing), although it tends to screw up when you get infested with spyware...

The difference between windows and linux is, you actually see the code in linux, the community actually and honestly tell you of all the bugs they find, and how they are correcting it, and you even have the ability to find a bug, inform (or fix if you know how), and see the development proccess.

Put that asside, linux is very configurable =)

As for file systems, just stick to EXT3. i've had endless crashes and computer hangs, and yet here i am without any data loss or corruption.

Hello folks.
I have learned how to recover from this issue while still using Ext2.

I have to use my Slackware CD to boot with, log in as root, and put in this line at the prompt :

e2fsck -v -y /dev/hda6

This seems to repair the file system and let me reboot and get into Linux.

I am liking what you folks are saying about how Ext3 is more stable.

How do i go about converting?

Thanks for the honest input peoples!

SG_1

To convert a partition from EXT2 to EXT3, you would do:

"X" would be the partition you wanted to convert.

You won't lose any data doing it that way, though you may need to edit the file system type in "/etc/fstab" but that is simple. You would simply change "ext2" to say "ext3".

Thanks for the info.
But due to wanting to try out Mandrake , doing so, not liking it, I have re-installed Slackware using the reiserfs file system.

SG_1

just remember, its always a learning process. don't be afraid to ask questions. man pages and the linux howto's were a big help for me when first starting. you can now goto www.tldp.org and view the howto's and guides online. ohh, you also need to remember to feed your kernel. it prefers beer. j/k

Hehe, I like that joke. I also appreciate the help i have found here in these forums, the advice has been invaluable and has kept me from just outright wiping Slackware and sticking with Windoze.

Take care.

SG_1

Some people also like being able to mount their EXT3 as an EXT2 if they need to, it can come in handy when you fire up a boot-disk with a bare kernel and can't play ball with ReiserFS

[edit]

I thought corruption was due to nfs (network file system). I just see that it was ntfs (a windows file system). Sorry