Boot Failure after a blackout

ahmed_alzahrani · 05-02-2006, 02:52 AM

hello everyone,

After a sudden shutdown of electricity generators, seems my machine can't boot properly and this is what's shown on the screen when I try booting it

Quote:

/dev/sda3:unexpected inconsistancy: run fsck manually
(i.e. , without -a or -b options)
fsck.ext2 /dev/sda3 failed (status 0x4). Run manually
blogd: log buffer exeeded
blogd: no message loging because /var file system is not accessible
fsck faild please repair manually and reboot.
the root file system is currently mounted read only.
to rmount it read write do:
bash# mount -n -o remount,rw /

and the following is the output of the uname -a command

Code:

Linux 2.6.8-24-default #1 wed oct 6 09:16:23 UTC 2004 x86_64 x86_64
GNU/linux.

In case this information is not enough to solve the problem then what else should I take into consideration?

I've found some topics that speaks about problems close to my situation but I don't want to risk losing any data if I go on following their instructions.

Thank you,

r3g · 05-02-2006, 03:16 AM

I'm afraid I'm not experienced enough with Linux to be able to help you to fix your problem, but I can tell you a really good way to ensure you don't lose your data.

If you have another PC or someone who can do this for you, then download a Live CD such as Knoppix or Simply Mepis, or any one of a dozen others. Just do a Google search to find them.

Once you have a bootable Live CD, then you should be able to access all your files on you broken installation quite easily and if you have a USB disk or similar you can backup all the important ones before you have to do anything drastic like a full re-installation.

Hope this helps,

Richard.

ahmed_alzahrani · 05-02-2006, 05:01 AM

Hi

Thank you Richard for your reply unfortunatly the data also contains lots of installed Applications and their configuration files. This is why I need to regaine the disk as it was before

Regards,

kevkim55 · 05-02-2006, 05:24 AM

Boot into failsafe mode or single user mode and run fsck manually. Power failure has resulted in corrupting some of the filesystem data. You should set the option "sync" in your /etc/fstab for all the linux partitions and most important - buy a UPS !

The error message in your posting suggests you have an ext2 filesystem. Is that correct or ? If it is ext2 consider changing over to ext3 as, ext3 comes with a journaling option which, would provide you with data integrity/safety to a good extent thus making it a reliable filesystem. If it is an ext3 filesystem chances of fixing the corruptions are good !

Boot into single user/failsafe mode or boot with an installtion/live CD and run fsck on your linux partitions. fsck should try and recover from the damage caused to the filesystem.

Goodluck.

ahmed_alzahrani · 05-02-2006, 07:56 AM

Hi

Thank you kevkim55 for your help. I'll try it and I'll update the thread later.

Regards,