ext3 journal problem

[Marvin Stodolsky <marvstod@rcn.com>]

There is a faulty ext3  journal on my Debian desktop system (currently 
on laptop),
blocking booting or e2fsck.
The precipating event may have been the copying of a tarball to /root/ 
which exceeded Root's reserve space.
The shut down appeared normal, but the reboot failed.

I have an alternate RedHat partition for developement purpuses.
When I try to fsck  the Debian /dev/sda2 therefrom,
there is a complaint about the Journal and fsck quits.

How could I disable the ext3 Journal, so that the file system could be 
more directly FSCKed?

MarvS