TLUG Mailing List

>Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 10:08:13 +0900
>From: Dave M G < martin@example.com>
>Subject: Re: [tlug] Hosed my home directory
>
>Stephen, TLUG,
>Okay... scary stuff.
>I was just sitting here, reading my morning email, munching on cereal,
>when suddenly this new error message appears on my MythTV
>computer's monitor. Keep in mind, I didn't touch a key, and it had been

>sitting idle since I booted up and reported the "bad magic" error a
little
>less than an hour ago.
>
>The error is right at the command prompt, as shown:
>
>mythtv@example.com:/$ [17180667.224000] EXT3-fs error (device hda1):
ext3_find.entry:
> bad entry in directory#665254: inode out of bounds - offset=152,
inode=66634, rec_len=12, name_len=4
>[17180667.224000] Remounting filesystem read-only
>[17180667.224000] EXT3-fs error (device hda1): ext3_find.entry: bad
entry in directory#908545: inode out
>of bounds - offset=1652, inode=908644, rec_len=12, name_len=2
>mythtv@example.com:/$
>
>With errors like that just coming out of nowhere, I'm thinking that
maybe the hard
>drive is basically just failing, and that even if I recover from these
errors, these
>are just signs of more to come.
>
>Am I wrong about that? Is this a system thing that can be repaired, or
should I save
>myself some trouble and just go buy a new HD? The machine, as mentioned
elsewhere,
>is a hand-me-down from a friend, so it's not a big surprise that the HD
might be shot.
>It would be an okay time to go and replace the HD, since I just got it
and there's no
>data I need to keep.
>
>
>If it's salvageable, what would I do to salvage it?
>
>If not, any recommendations on where to get a good HD these days?
>
>--
>Dave M G
>Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn
>Kernel 2.6.20-15-generic
>Pentium D Dual Core Processor

Honestly, From the sounds of it, that may be your best bet.
Hard drive failures are not very common, but they do happen, and that is
what
this one sounds like.  At the very least the file system has become
Corrupted.   As for salvage, I would suggest a new drive for your home
Directory, and then a total reformat and error scan of this one before
you do anything else with it.  If it doesn't survive the process of
Rebuilding it as an extra drive, then you know that it was time to get
rid
of it anyway.  If it does survive the process, and checks out clean,
then
use it for a while as a data drive for random crap that you can afford
to lose.

As much as we like to think otherwise, we all tend to keep a lot of
random crap
around. :)  If it survives in that capacity without errors for a few
more
months, and still reads clean when you run diagnostic software on it,
then it
may be trusted for more important data.  Depending on how much you paid
for the thing, and how long ago, it might be worth going through all of
This (or if it is under warranty, getting it replaced or refurbished).
If you
really don't care that much, then it might be better as a paper weight.
^_^

Don't feel too bad.  We all lose drives occasionally.  It sucks when it
happens,
but it is not so bad when it is a newer drive that doesn't have anything
important
on it yet.

Before you chuck the drive check the dmesg logs. If it is giving a bunch of I/O errors, then it's a hardware problem and you need a new hdd. If there are no I/O errors, your fs might just of corrupted itself somehow and re-formating the partition will probably fix the problem. Either way I suspect the data is lost if fsck didn't work.

Arwyn