Linux help: Unable to mount filesystem

S

spolygon

Disciple
Hi Guys,

Quite new with linux Need some help.
I am running a download rig running Ubuntu 9.10.
Today I had a power failure and despite the computer being on an APC UPS,I lost power.
On rebooting the system, I get the following error:

Unable to mount filesystem (then a bunch of numbers)
A maintenance shell will now be started.
CONTROL-D will terminate this shell and retry.

I get this screen every timeand the booting process stops
Control D does not hjelp.

Completely clueless on what to do next.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.
 
Your file-system has got corrupted Use the install cd and type linux rescue. This will mount your file-system on a temp partition. You will have to run fsck.e2fs on the system partiton. You could try google and find out how to run the commands.
 
spolygon said:
Hi Guys,

Quite new with linux Need some help.
I am running a download rig running Ubuntu 9.10.
Today I had a power failure and despite the computer being on an APC UPS,I lost power.
On rebooting the system, I get the following error:

Unable to mount filesystem (then a bunch of numbers)
A maintenance shell will now be started.
CONTROL-D will terminate this shell and retry.

I get this screen every timeand the booting process stops
Control D does not hjelp.

Completely clueless on what to do next.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

I received this exact same problem two days ago. I found this thread which provided the necessary details to get started... but have ran into consistently more and more problems.

1) the ubuntu 9.10 ISO does not have linux rescue enabled or available as a feature (at least the image I used)
2) tried Download | Ubuntu Rescue Remix which is a psuedo-recovery console which at least provides a shell.

I was hoping that spolygon could provide more detailed account of how this problem was corrected, or possibly, someone could link me in the direction of detailed instructions. I will continue my own search and post the results here, as a power failure causing corruption of the filesystem might be more common with ext4.

Cheer:cool2:
 
I also recently lost ext4 journal due to other freezes, similar to corruption caused by powercuts. Had to reformat the partition even though GRUB would load the /boot folder via old ext2/3 support. If you dont have a UPS (you should get one) and face frequent cuts then I would suggest simply sticking with ext3. For now you can try searching for "force ext4 fsck" to see if that helps...

edit: Come to think of it... if GRUB would read the disk, try to mount the partition in ext3 mode (backward compatible) then change /etc/fstab to always mount in ext3... you can backup your files and reformat then..I should have tried it myself :)
 
For record, here is what one should do, incase you get this:

1) Enter Recovery mode(you may need to input root password). In Ubuntu Set one, if you haven't done already.

2) unmount all partitions

Code: 
umount -a

3) run file system check, fsck

Code: 
fsck

4) Reboot
 
Does one absolutely need to set root password to enable the root account logins (in Ubuntu or other sudo based systems) or is it sufficient to do "sudo -i" to get into proper root account temporarily?

Note that "sudo -i" (or was it sudo -s) seems to be proper root user with root home dir, not partial plain "sudo" which gives you root perms but you still have your own user environment settings like home dir etc.
 
Thanks so much for the prompt responses! I have been able to reach an authentication prompt, but I can't remember quite how. Going to try unmounting and then fsck, after that possibly finding more instructions on how to "roll back" the format to ext3.

:clap:

timestamp this fix! I'm on the box and in now. Thanks.

Steps taken:

enter cd ..
enter "umount -h"
Received message saying all devices were unmounted
enter "fsck -V"
(-V : verbose)
Ran through all errors found, hitting no. Tried reboot, but failed again. Repeated steps 1-3, and this time agreed to fix all errors found.

Reboot, and I reached login prompt for GUI. :cool:
 
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