<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.3020" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY> <DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=717341415-02022007>Before you do this, make double sure you have a backup of your disk volume. It can, and probably will, damage some or all of your filesystem.</SPAN></FONT></DIV> <DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=717341415-02022007></SPAN></FONT> </DIV> <DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=717341415-02022007>First you need to find your backup superblocks. You can calculate them based on the filesystem block size, but I find that it's easier to just do the following:</SPAN></FONT></DIV> <DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=717341415-02022007></SPAN></FONT> </DIV> <DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=717341415-02022007>[root@server ~]# dumpe2fs /dev/sda6 | grep Backup<BR>dumpe2fs 1.35 (28-Feb-2004)<BR> Backup superblock at 8193, Group descriptors at 8194-8194<BR> Backup superblock at 24577, Group descriptors at 24578-24578<BR> Backup superblock at 40961, Group descriptors at 40962-40962<BR> Backup superblock at 57345, Group descriptors at 57346-57346<BR> Backup superblock at 73729, Group descriptors at 73730-73730</SPAN></FONT></DIV> <DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=717341415-02022007> </DIV></SPAN></FONT> <DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=717341415-02022007>Now that you have the backup superblocks, you have to replace the old superblock with a backup superblock:</SPAN></FONT></DIV> <DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=717341415-02022007></SPAN></FONT> </DIV> <DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=717341415-02022007>e2fsck -b 8193 /dev/sda6</SPAN></FONT></DIV> <DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=717341415-02022007></SPAN></FONT> </DIV> <DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=717341415-02022007>Then try to mount the filesystem. If it fails to mount, move on down to the next backup superblock (24577) and so on, until you run out of backup superblocks *OR* the filesystem mounts properly.</SPAN></FONT></DIV> <DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=717341415-02022007></SPAN></FONT> </DIV> <DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=717341415-02022007>Once you get it mounted, recover whats left of your files to a safe place, wipe the drive, reformat it, restore your files and then think long and hard about getting a decent nightly backup solution in place!</SPAN></FONT></DIV> <DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=717341415-02022007></SPAN></FONT> </DIV> <DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=717341415-02022007>..Chuck..</SPAN></FONT></DIV> <DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=717341415-02022007> </DIV></SPAN></FONT><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left> <HR tabIndex=-1> <FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>From:</B> Nickel Cadmium [mailto:nicdnicd@gmail.com] <BR><B>Sent:</B> Friday, February 02, 2007 7:14 AM<BR><B>To:</B> ext3-users@redhat.com<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: Can't mount /home anymore<BR></FONT><BR></DIV> <DIV></DIV>Hi!<BR><BR>I'm still stuck with my unmountable home partition.<BR>Would it be possible to mount it using a backup block somehow?<BR><BR>Cd<BR><BR> <DIV><SPAN class=gmail_quote>On 1/20/07, <B class=gmail_sendername>Nickel Cadmium </B><<A href="mailto:nicdnicd@gmail.com">nicdnicd@gmail.com</A>> wrote:</SPAN> <BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid">Hi Christian (& all)! <BR><BR>Thanks for the reply. I was away for some time but here is the extra information you requested.<BR><BR>Yes, after the message "fsck.ext3: e2fsck_read_bitmaps: illegal bitmap block(s) for /home", fsck just stops. <BR>The command 'fsck.ext3 /dev/sda6; echo $?' returns the value 8. Looking at the man page for fsck, I found that this is an "Operational error". I have totally no clue what this means.<BR><BR>With fsck, nothing is reported in the syslog file. If I try mounting the partition, I get the following errors reported: <BR>Jan 20 11:43:57 localhost kernel: EXT3-fs error (device sda6): ext3_check_descriptors: Inode bitmap for group 522 not in group (block 3271884801)!<BR>Jan 20 11:43:57 localhost kernel: EXT3-fs: group descriptors corrupted ! <BR><BR>I could dd the partition without errors. I did copy the partition two times already, I order to be able to try some recovery on it. With converting a copy to ext2 and running "fsck.ext2 -v -y" on it (in something like two days), I was able to get some files (all?) in the lost+found. However, the file names are lost and the directory structure as well. It's hard to tell which file is what. <BR>I'm really wondering if there is a way to mount that partition again.<BR><BR>I run Mandriva on a Pentium PC. My kernel is 2.6.17-5mdv. However, I first thought than my /home problem was some kind of booting problem. Thus I upgraded from Mandriva 2006 to Mandriva 2007. This means that I don't know what my kernel was when the problem occurred. It should be 2.6.12 as this was a straight out-of-the-box installation.<BR>My fsck version is "e2fsck 1.39".<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR>Cd <DIV><SPAN class=q id=q_1103f2acc68cbe17_1><BR><BR> <DIV><SPAN class=gmail_quote>On 1/14/07, <B class=gmail_sendername>Christian Kujau </B><<A onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:lists@nerdbynature.de" target=_blank>lists@nerdbynature.de</A>> wrote:</SPAN> <BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid">On Wed, 10 Jan 2007, Nickel Cadmium wrote: <BR>> # fsck.ext3 /dev/sda6<BR>> e2fsck 1.39 (29-May-2006)<BR>> Group descriptors look bad... trying backup blocks...<BR>> Inode bitmap for group 522 is not in group. (block 3271884801)<BR>> Relocate<y>? yes <BR>><BR>> fsck.ext3: e2fsck_read_bitmaps: illegal bitmap block(s) for /home<BR><BR>...and after this message, fsck.ext3 just stops? What's the exit code of<BR>fsck.ext3? (e.g. 'fsck.ext3 /dev/sda6; echo $?'). Try " fsck.ext3 -v" for<BR>more details. Is there anything related in your syslog? Can you dd(1)<BR>the device (read! not write! :)) without errors?<BR><BR>Which kernel/arch are you running?<BR><BR>Christian.<BR>--<BR>BOFH excuse #99: <BR><BR>SIMM crosstalk.<BR></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></SPAN></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>