[H-GEN] Linux file system problems

Sat Apr 30 04:07:56 EDT 2011

Hello,

something is wrong with one of the partitions on my MacBook. This computer is currently dual booting between Ubuntu 10.10 and OS X 10.6, using rEFIt as a boot loader. The hard disc itself is fine, and OS X still boots but Ubuntu does not. 

My suspicion is that some key files became corrupted when I had to turn the machine off and on again without shutting down properly at one point when Linux froze. But then, this is the sort of problem that I thought journaled file systems such as ext4 were meant to prevent?

If I attempt to boot into Linux, I get the following boot messages:

[ 1.485763] [<c02acd56>] ? ext4_get_sb+0x26/0x30
[ 1.485817] [<c02b1b20>] ? ext4_fill_super+0x0/0x1a40
[ 1.485871] [<c021b864>] ? vfs_kern_mount+0x74/0x1c0
[ 1.485926] [<c022ffc3>] ? get_fs_type+0x33/0xb0
[ 1.485980] [<c021ba0e>] ? do_kern_mount+0x3e/0xe0
[ 1.486034] [<c023313c>] ? do_mount+0x1dc/0x220
[ 1.486087] [<c02331eb>] ? sys_mount+0x6b/0xa0
[ 1.486141] [<c05caeb4>] ? syscall_call+0x7/oxb
[ 1.486193] Code: 00 55 89 e5 57 89 c7 56 53 e8 13 7b 26 00 5f 04 b8 ff ff
ff ff 8b 77 08 eb 1c 8d b6 00 00 00 00 8b 0c 85 c0 77 71 8b 57 14 <8b> 14 0a
89 d1 c1 f9 1f 01 d3 11 ce 8d 48 01 a1 6c b3 5d c0 ba
[ 1.488285] Initialising USB Mass Storage driver...
[ 1.488338] EIP: [<c0362e7a>] __percpu_counter_sum+0x2a/0x70
[ 1.488394] scsi4 : usb-storage 1-3:1.0
[ 1.488338]  SS:ESP 0068:f6a59d60
[ 1.488535] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[ 1.488537] USB Mass Storage support registered.
[ 1.488338] CR2: 0000000001b42000
[ 1.488763] ---[ end trace 913e01b15d17ecdd ]---
Killed
mount: mounting /dev on /root/dev failed: No such file or directory
mount: mounting /sys on /root/sys failed: No such file or directory
mount: mounting /proc on /root/proc failed: No such file or directory
Target filesystem doesn't have requested /sbin/init
No init found. Try passing init= bootarg.

BusyBox v1.15.3 (Ubuntu 1:1.15.3-1ubuntu5) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built in commands.

(initramfs) [ 1.592121] usb 1-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hdc and 
 address 5
[... and then more stuff about the USB devices plugged in to the computer.]

At this point, it looks like it had brought up a shell, and I should be able to enter commands and maybe do something useful to fix the problem. Unfortunately not. I tried typing in 'help', but nothing was echoed to screen, and it did not seem to have any effect. 

I then tried booting the system using an Ubuntu 10.10 live cd, to see if I could fix the file system problems. I tried the 'check file system' option in Disk Utility (under the Administration menu). This confirmed that the file system has problems, but did not attempt to fix it:
File system check on "84 GB Filesystem" (Partition 4 of ATA Hitachi HTS725050A9A364) completed
File system is NOT clean

I also tried fsck, but also ran into problems:
root at ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# fsck /dev/sda4
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2
e2fsck 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
fsck.ext4: Device or resource busy while trying to open /dev/sda4
Filesystem mounted or opened exclusively by another program?
root at ubuntu:/home/ubuntu#

It's not mounted:

root at ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# df -haT
Filesystem    Type    Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
aufs          aufs    991M   58M  934M   6% /
none          proc       0     0     0   -  /proc
none         sysfs       0     0     0   -  /sys
fusectl    fusectl       0     0     0   -  /sys/fs/fuse/connections
none      devtmpfs    985M  328K  985M   1% /dev
none        devpts       0     0     0   -  /dev/pts
/dev/sr0   iso9660    694M  694M     0 100% /cdrom
/dev/loop0
         squashfs    661M  661M     0 100% /rofs
none       debugfs       0     0     0   -  /sys/kernel/debug
none    securityfs       0     0     0   -  /sys/kernel/security
none         tmpfs    991M  104K  991M   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs        tmpfs    991M   20K  991M   1% /tmp
none         tmpfs    991M   96K  991M   1% /var/run
none         tmpfs    991M  4.0K  991M   1% /var/lock
binfmt_misc
      binfmt_misc       0     0     0   -  /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc
gvfs-fuse-daemon
fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon    0.0K  0.0K  0.0K   -  /home/ubuntu/.gvfs
root at ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# 

Also, I can fsck the partition that normally holds /home (and is healthy) without any problems:

root at ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# fsck /dev/sda5
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2
e2fsck 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
/dev/sda5: clean, 27068/14958592 files, 8127928/59805696 blocks
root at ubuntu:/home/ubuntu#

I've also tried booting from an older kernel, and from GRUB's recovery option, with no success.

Any other suggestions would be appreciated. 

Since /home is a separate partition, I guess I could reformat /dev/sda4 and reinstall, but that seems somewhat overly dramatic.

thanks,

gavin,

-- 
Honestly, if you're given the choice between Armageddon or tea, you don't say 'What kind of tea?'
               -- Neil Gaiman

Gavin Duley
<gavin at microcomaustralia.com.au> <gpd at sdf-eu.org>
WWW: http://www.gavinduley.org/