fairly serious problem, need help!

[Dr.James D.Freels <jdfreels@home.com>]

I have 2 Debian/Alpha machines running v2.2r3 stable with nearly
identical setups.  Machine #2 has no problems.  On Machine #1, I have 
experimented with 2.4.4 kernels and have had problems with it, so both 
machines are running v2.2.19 of the kernel.

The problem is that somehow the file /var/run/random-seed got corrupted on 
machine #1.  This file is packaged by sysvinit and is created on bootup by
the /etc/init.d/urandom script.  The problem is that I cannot remove the 
corrupted file /var/run/random-seed.  I get an error message 

fea6:/var/run# rm random-seed
rm: cannot remove `random-seed': Input/output error
fea6:/var/run#

This file is normally overwritten from /dev/random on boot.  So I suspect 
that somehow a v2.4.4 kernel boot has caused this corruption.

I have tried copying the 512 byte file from Machine #2 and write over Machine 
#1 file just to force this problem to clear, but it will not do it.

This problem also causes the entire AMANDA backup of this filesystem to fail 
due to this one file; bummer!

I have not tried to reboot yet to see if this will help fix the problem.  I 
am a little worried about doing that for fear of another problem might show 
up.  

I also wonder if this is related to why I have had problems with the v2.4.4 
kernel.  I can't remember if random number generation is needed in the kernel 
?

Does anyone know how I can force /var/run/random-seed to go away and be 
recreated ?

Thanks

P.S.  Please respond by e-mail in addition to this mailing list/news group to 
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