Re: Kernel Panic SOLVED Questions concerning incident
Lance Hoffmeyer wrote:
> I went into OS2 and used e2fsck on the partition and fixed the structure. I now have two questions regarding this incident:
>
> Why didn't Linux fix the file system at boot? Why did I have to do it from OS2?
Becuase there's a chicken and egg problem. You need the system to boot so you can run e2fsck since that program is located on your root filesystem.
> When I booted back into Linux I got
>
> /dev/hda5 reached maximal mount count, check forced
>
> What does this mean?
This is normal. On some unix systems (or with some filesystems perhaps I should say) fsck is run on the filesystems each time the system is booted. Well, fsck can take
a while to run so with the ext2 filesystem there's a count kept on how many times the filesystem has been booted and the filesystem is only checked every N times it is
booted. Also, when the filesystem is unmounted properly it is marked 'clean'. So at boot time if a filesystem is marked clean and hasn't yet reached its maximal mount
count the time consuming fsck is skipped.
> Jens B. Jorgensen suggested booting from a rescue diskette and running e2fsck. I have a boot floppy but not a rescue diskette. How do I create a rescue diskette?
The rescue diskette is the same diskette you used to install the system the first time. You could also mount the CD if that's how you installed the system. The image
of the rescue diskette can be found on any debian ftp site.
> >
> > > I had my system hang last night while running a statistical process. I used Ctrl-Alt-Delete to
> > > reboot. Now I get a kernel panic.
> > >
> > > UMSDOS: msdos_read_super failed, mount aborted .......
> > >
> > > HPFS: hpfs_read_super: Not HPFS ...........
> > >
> > > Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:05
> > >
> > > Does 03:05 mean 3rd harddisk, 5th partition? Linux is on Harddisk 1, partition 05.
> >
> > 03:05 means the device with major number 3, minor number 5. This is in fact /dev/hda5.
> >
> > > Other things I have tried.
> > >
> > > Booting from floppy, same error.
> > >
> > > I have OS2 on my system as well. I dualboot to DOS and try the Debian install CD, but I get
> > >
> > > boot from dos install
> > > ran out of input data ---system halted
> > >
> > > When I was compiling a kernel before I was able to use this to reset lilo but now it won't
> > > work.
> > >
> > > I have ext2-os2 so I should be able to read my linux partitions from OS2, but I am not able to
> > > read the Linux partition.
> > >
> > > Any suggestions on how to solve this problem?
> >
> > Boot the rescue disk. After you get to the menus go down all the way to the option to exit to a
> > shell. At the shell prompt run: 'e2fsck /dev/hda5' to fix the file system.
> >
> > Good luck!
> >
> > --
> > Jens B. Jorgensen
> > jjorgens@bdsinc.com
> >
> >
> >
--
Jens B. Jorgensen
jjorgens@bdsinc.com
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