News Group Posts

error on boot

From: Bela Lubkin <belal@sco.com>
Subject: Re: Cannot mount boot partition
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 10:13:09 GMT
References: <847kfjz2ii.fsf@tecont.de> 

Ralf Muschall wrote:

> A machine has problems mounting the boot partition as follows:
> 
> During the boot process (when SCO is already running and doing it's
> mounts and initializations), it stops, asks
> 
> ,----
> | Soll das Boot-Filesystem |berpr|ft werden (/dev/boot)? (j/n)
> `----
> 
> (which means "shall the boot filesystem be checked (...)?(...)")
> 
> Neither 'j' nor 'n' is accepted here (both letters just cause the
> question to be repeated), simply pressing the return key continues the
> booting.

It might have faulty localization and need "y" (but that doesn't explain
why "n" == "no/nein" would fail).  But this is beside the point, anyway.

> After successfully booting, the machine says:
> 
> fsck: unrecoverable error reading disk 0 dev 1/40
>  (ha=0 id=0 lun=0)
> 
> , which is about the boot partition.  Since nothing there seems to be
> needed for the running machine, it works OK otherwise (besides giving
> the annoying error message at boot tim).  If I say
> 
> fsck -n /dev/boot
> 
> (-n to avoid further harm, /dev/boot is the right device (to be
> mounted onto /boot)), gives the same message.

The contents of /stand are definitely needed for the machine to be able
to boot at all.  The 4th stage boot program (/stand/boot), the boot
parameters (/stand/etc/default/boot) and the kernel (/stand/unix) are
loaded from there.  You wouldn't be seeing those error messages if those
parts were not readable.

However, the code that reads those things is as simple as it can
possibly be and still do the work.  The code in the kernel is much more
complicated and checks more error conditions.  Apparently there is an
error here which isn't noticable _or_ harmful to the boot process, but
prevents the kernel from mounting /stand.

What happens if you `mount -r /dev/boot /stand` ?  A read-only mount
checks less things and might allow you to access the files.

> The machine is planned to be replaced during the next few months - do
> I have to expect problems or can I leave it for the time being?

If this is the first symptom of drive failure then you do need to worry.
Today /stand is inaccessible; tomorrow you might have a head crash or
something more serious.  Make sure you have a good full backup of the
whole system, and that you make frequent backups of work being done on
the machine.

>Bela<
 

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