[H-GEN] VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev ide1(22,1)

[Jason Parker-Burlingham]

On Sat, Aug 06, 2005 at 01:21:54PM +1000, Geoff Shang wrote:

> It then panicked as it couldn't mount the root filesystem because it was 
> reporting a bogus size of 0 bytes, even though the kernel loaded off that 
> same partition.

Well, the kernel is loaded by reading blocks off the disk directly, no
filesystem involved, so all that means is that the blocks with the
kernel on them are OK.

> But when I try to mount a partition, I get the following error:
> 
> VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev ide1(22,1).
> FAT: bogus logical sector size 0
> VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev 16:01.
> FAT: bogus logical sector size 0
> VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev 16:01.
> mount: you must specify the filesystem type

Do you get this error from all your partitions?  Sounds like the magic
is hosed---there's a string of bytes at the start of the filesystem that
identify it as such and not as something else.

Running a quick check here, it look as though the magic bytes are
0xEF 0x53; while searching for those bytes I found a number of pages
that list instructions on how to recover a messed-up filesystem.

I wonder if a good first step might not be making sure you have a valid
partition table, because if that's not right then your mount command
won't read the right blocks, well get confused and bail in exactly the
manner you describe.

You seem to have a rescue system; what does file -s say is in the
special device you're trying to mount?

> So is my drive hosed?  Or is there something I'm overlooking?

At this point I would be pulling out my backups, or if I did not have
any, making an exact copy of the broken drive to work on.  Well, two
copies, one to work on and one "in case".

Cheers,
-- 
Jason Parker-Burlingham
<jasonp at panix.com>
(Watch this space)