# reiserfs made my system un-bootable

## Uranus

Hi there... I have my root partition reiserfs, and, up until now, I would get a message when booting saying it could not find my /dev/hda3 so it could not use fsck.reiserfs on it

but today, I was booting up, and it just says the same error and wants the root password for maintenance or ctrl+d to reboot... I guess I did the ~30 mounts and it was time for a forced fsck

anyway... I tried doing fsck.reiserfs manually but /dev/hda3 doesn't even exist! I have /dev/hda1 /dev/hda2 /dev/hda6 /dev/hda7 ... no /dev/hda3... but if I type "mount" it tells me my / partition is mounted with reiserfs from /dev/hda3

wtf?

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## neuron

fdisk /dev/hda

p

q

should list the partitions, it could be it shows /dev/hda3 as mounted becouse you'v got a buggy fstab file or something I guess, and that your actual root is /dev/hda7 or something.

it could also be your partition table is screwed up.

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## pilla

Maybe hda3 is the extended partition where you have the logical disks inside

Then, it is correct that you cannot mount it.

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## mb4guns

big change this is the case, since a primary bootable gets hda1 ...

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## Uranus

I have 3 partitions, boot, root and swap, /dev/hda1, /dev/hda3, /dev/hda2 respectively... They are all primary partitions (as cfdisk reports)

I tried running fsck.reiserfs with all my /dev/hdaX and it doesn't accept them

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## neuron

did you do what I asked? I'm gonna have to go with Bloody Bastard here and guess you have logical partitions.

reiserfs could cause errors, but it would be on the filesystem, a partition table problem... I dunno, doubt that a lot.

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## pilla

could you post the outputs of fdisk and fstab in natura for us?

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## Uranus

hi, sorry I took so long to reply... had school, plus tutoring, plus my birthday was yesterday (got a wireless microsoft mouse+keyboard... very sweet  :Razz: )... anyway:

fdisk

fstab

in natura!  :Smile: 

u guys could give me a late b-day present and make my gentoo work again  :Smile: 

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## neuron

try to boot from cd and run reiserfsck

and happy birthday  :Smile: 

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## Jimboberella

I am thinking that you have ext2/3 and not reiser partitions. Try running just fsck.

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## Uranus

k, I booted up from the cd and I was able to do a fsck.reiserfs and it found errors on what it seemed to be every file, then I rebooted and the same thing happens... I have no /dev/hda3 symlink so it's pointless to do a fsck of any type.... what I don't understand is why it mounts the partition read-only, but then the /dev/hda3 symlink is not there at all

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## Uranus

*bump*

k, so I booted with the 1.2 gentoo cd and the /dev/hda3 symlink WAS there and I was able to do an fsck.reiserfs on it... but... when I rebooted, gentoo still wanted to do an fsck because it reached the point where there have been too many mounts without checking the file-system. Which leads me to believe that the problem could be my kernel... I have the latest gaming-sources (r3). Tonight I'll try emerging gentoo-sources and I'll try with that

does that make any sense?

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## pilla

Try vanilla sources instead

 *Uranus wrote:*   

> *bump*
> 
> k, so I booted with the 1.2 gentoo cd and the /dev/hda3 symlink WAS there and I was able to do an fsck.reiserfs on it... but... when I rebooted, gentoo still wanted to do an fsck because it reached the point where there have been too many mounts without checking the file-system. Which leads me to believe that the problem could be my kernel... I have the latest gaming-sources (r3). Tonight I'll try emerging gentoo-sources and I'll try with that
> 
> does that make any sense?

 

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## Yoshi Assim

 *Uranus wrote:*   

> k, I booted up from the cd and I was able to do a fsck.reiserfs and it found errors on what it seemed to be every file, then I rebooted and the same thing happens... I have no /dev/hda3 symlink so it's pointless to do a fsck of any type.... what I don't understand is why it mounts the partition read-only, but then the /dev/hda3 symlink is not there at all

 

Hello!

I read all the messages above, but is possible that you make some changes in /etc/devfsd.conf that modifies hd's symlinks???

I had a little difference in my fsstab in the swap line:

```

/dev/hda6      swap      swap      defaults   0 0

```

probably isn't important but...

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## Uranus

btw... it's the same with the vanilla-sources... see this

hmmm... devfsd.conf? could be... can you give me the relevant lines so I can check for differences?

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## Uranus

I saw this on the forums -> https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=51838&highlight=devfsd

so I tried to play around with devfsd -> click

still no luck... any ideas?

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## Uranus

guys, is it possible (and viable) to change my reiserfs partition into an ext3 one without losing any data?

or, is there a way for me to disable the thing that makes gentoo wanna fsck.reiserfs my hard-drive every X mounts?

I just wanna hold on long enough till 1.4 gets here... I could download rc3 but I have a monthly download limit, and I've been wanting to do a fresh install mainly to use more aggressive CFLAGS but I wanna wait till 1.4

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## Yoshi Assim

 *Uranus wrote:*   

> guys, is it possible (and viable) to change my reiserfs partition into an ext3 one without losing any data?

 

I think that's impossible!. But you can take another HD (from a friend  :Smile: ) and make a backup

 *Uranus wrote:*   

> or, is there a way for me to disable the thing that makes gentoo wanna fsck.reiserfs my hard-drive every X mounts?

 

I don't know this...I supose Yes. But check reiser filesystem is very fast! (This is one of reasons I use Reiser)

 *Uranus wrote:*   

> I just wanna hold on long enough till 1.4 gets here... I could download rc3 but I have a monthly download limit, and I've been wanting to do a fresh install mainly to use more aggressive CFLAGS but I wanna wait till 1.4

 

I you think that all is OK and you have a good configuration you don't need to wait until 1.4. After 1.4 released you can type in your console make system and later make world

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