Comments on: Repairing ReiserFS file system with reiserfsck

By: AFP_SCH

AFP_SCH — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 15:52:30 +0000

Hi,
I write
“reiserfsck –check /dev/sdb5″

and the system show me this message
“Will read-only check consistency of the filesystem on /dev/sdb5
Will put log info to ‘stdout’

Do you want to run this program?[N/Yes] (note need to type Yes if you do):”

Then i type:
“Yes”

An system show this
“###########
reiserfsck –check started at Sat Dec 26 10:13:53 2009
###########
Replaying journal..
Reiserfs journal ‘/dev/sdb5′ in blocks [18..8211]: 0 transactions replayed
Checking internal tree..

Bad root block 0. (–rebuild-tree did not complete)

Cancelado
usuario@usuario:~$ sudo reiserfsck –scan-whole-partition –rebuild-tree /dev/sdb5
reiserfsck 3.6.19 (2003 http://www.namesys.com)”

I wait 2 days for any answer on diferents forum, then i try this comands
reiserfsck –scan-whole-partition –rebuild-tree /dev/sdb5

Then system show this message
“reiserfsck 3.6.19 (2003 http://www.namesys.com)

*************************************************************
** Do not run the program with –rebuild-tree unless **
** something is broken and MAKE A BACKUP before using it. **
** If you have bad sectors on a drive it is usually a bad **
** idea to continue using it. Then you probably should get **
** a working hard drive, copy the file system from the bad **
** drive to the good one — dd_rescue is a good tool for **
** that — and only then run this program. **
** If you are using the latest reiserfsprogs and it fails **
** please email bug reports to reiserfs-list@namesys.com, **
** providing as much information as possible — your **
** hardware, kernel, patches, settings, all reiserfsck **
** messages (including version), the reiserfsck logfile, **
** check the syslog file for any related information. **
** If you would like advice on using this program, support **
** is available for $25 at http://www.namesys.com/support.html. **
*************************************************************

Will rebuild the filesystem (/dev/sdb5) tree
Will put log info to ‘stdout’

Do you want to run this program?[N/Yes] (note need to type Yes if you do):Yes
Replaying journal..
Reiserfs journal ‘/dev/sdb5′ in blocks [18..8211]: 0 transactions replayed
###########
reiserfsck –rebuild-tree started at Sat Dec 26 10:22:01 2009
###########

Pass 0:
####### Pass 0 #######
The whole partition (122093984 blocks) is to be scanned”

I have 1 day and 3 hors waitin.
I calculate that this work take 10 days,¿¿is this normal??

Thanks!!

Sorry for my english….

By: Elton

Elton — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:33:38 +0000

This command not working Suse Linux En 10
reiserfsck –scan-whole-partition –rebuild-tree /dev/sda1

By: Toffel

Toffel — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 20:09:23 +0000

Thank you for this article. Very useful for me.

By: Fred

Fred — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 04:26:32 +0000

You should not attempt this from a remote machine, because going to init 1 will stop ssh, then you are in deep shit.

By: spiff

spiff — Fri, 23 May 2008 03:18:40 +0000

Thanks for this article. This helped me repair my corrupt ReiserFS partition.

By: vivek

vivek — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:51:22 +0000

Bruce,

See step # 2: Backup partition/disk

run dd command to backup data and create new image on other hard disk. You only need read only access.

By: Bruce Mincks

Bruce Mincks — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:33:20 +0000

This is an update of my preceding. It’s not my swap partition; it’s the root partition. I thought it was the swap partitition from misreading the “failed to load hda5″ as it flashed by the bootup diagnostics.

Now I have run residerfsck — check and learned that I have a Problem in Internal Tree 2/120 (of 168)/19 (of 170) there at block 65885, and I need to rebuild the tree, not the superblock. The man pages say it “strongly recommends” that I back up the data before I proceed, but how am I supposed to do that when the partition is now mounted “read only.” All the critical data would fit on a small flash drive, but like any other media, it has a mount point which is now “read only.”

Isn’t this a contradiction, to recommend a backup for a partition that has been mounted read only?

By: Bruce Mincks

Bruce Mincks — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:24:49 +0000

I need to fix my swap partition, apparently. I can see all my files are there, using the CAT command, but I can’t get an xterm. The filesystem is read-only. I was confused by the first error message that told me to run fsck when I need to run reiserfsck, apparently, having consulted my SUSE 10 manual. I have never managed to run reiserfsck, because I chickened out after it asked me for the block size (did it also give 4096 by default, then?) and I think the initial number. Now this information is telling me I need to back up evreything and remount it and all this stuff, when the error message seems to suggest it’s not a big deal; it wants me to run reiserfs and fix some bad pointer.

Can someone tell me both the correct syntax for doing this as well as how I find out the correct parameters before I try it?

I got so far as checking the partition, which tells me that I have a corrupted superblock. Then when I try to rebuild the superblock, it starts asking me all these questions I’m not sure about, and I don’t want to lose two months of work here.

I’ll be happy to consult the right man pages if I could figure out which one is really appropriate.

By: What am I learning now?

What am I learning now? — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 04:58:56 +0000

[...] Well, recently, I finally stumbled across something mentioning how to go about recovering stuff from a partition that has become corrupted. I thought,”Ah ha! I bet I can use this to save those photos and stuff I lost a couple of years ago!” So I went searching for more info. If you read that other article, you might think,”What else ya need to know? That seems to cover it pretty good!” Well, I have always been the type who would rather be overly informed. With the photos and stuff on that drive, I have always kinda thought, when I try to recover that stuff, I need to get it right the first time, cause that drive will die about the time I plug it back into my computer. [...]

By: nixcraft

nixcraft — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 15:34:16 +0000

Ian, sorry to hear that it didnâ€™t worked out for you but it did worked for Jacques. Data recovery is complicated topic (procedure) and it needs some expertise/experience.

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 17:53:05 +0000

Tried it. It didn’t work. I ended up using a WINDOWS program called “UFS Explorer” – yes, I paid the $22.95 for it – and it recovered most of my needed data. Running on Windows. I’m sorry, but that’s just wrong, when Linux should be better at dealing with Linux filesystems.

One utility that is needed, if we’re going to put Linux on many desktops, is a utility to read an unmounted drive and recover the data from it without depending on the superblock, inodes, et cetera. I don’t know what, exactly, UFS Explorer does to do its thing, but it does it very nicely. Other utilities are out there that do this; at least one runs in java (okay, crawls in java): rossifstools. It doesn’t do it as well as UFS explorer does, though. And rfstools just sucks; it balks when the filesystem is not whole and intact.

By: chadrick

chadrick — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 07:59:12 +0000

This is same as old article, surviving filesystem failures. Good one :)