[TriLUG] ext3 surprise

[Brian Daniels]

My RH9 box just had a nasty hard lockup while copying data from an external 
FireWire device.  My boot drive is an internal IDE formatted ext3, so I 
wasn't too concerned.

During reboot the journal appeared to recover fine, but since the crash was 
pretty ugly I said yes to the 'Press Y to check filesystem' prompt.

And shortly thereafter got the dreaded fsck UNEXPECTED FILESYSTEM
INCONSISTENCY - DROPPING TO SHELL.  A manual fsck later, one file
(/sbin/install-info) was toast.  Luckily that doesn't affect rebooting and 
can be easily replaced.

My understanding of ext3 says this is a "can't happen" situation unless the 
underlying hardware fails.  But the underlying hardware is a SMART-capable 
IDE hd, and it insists all is well.

Isn't the point of a journaling file system to guarantee that fsck's are 
unnecessary?  Any ext3 guru's on the list?

--Brian

-- 
Question with boldness even the existence of a god;
because if there be one he must approve of the
homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.

--Thomas Jefferson, Aug. 10, 1787


Brian Daniels                  bitmage at bellsouth.net
      http://www.eviloverlord.net