On Mon, 2020-12-07 at 15:43 +1100, Anthony K wrote:
On 7/12/20 12:20 pm, Robert G. (Doc) Savage via CentOS wrote:
A client's (truly ancient) file server running CentOS 7 suddenly started misbehaving, and I believe the ext4 filesystem on /dev/mapper/cl-root may be corrupted. A reboot fails with a file system check and drops me into maintenance mode. I tried booting from a live C7 DVD and as root running e2fsck. It complains that the superblock could not be read and suggests running "e2fsck -b 8193 <device>". That also fails.
Is there a way to more forcefully "encourage" e2fsck to do its job without totally destroying that filesystem?
--Doc Savage Fairview Heights, IL _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
I'd say first make sure the hardware is in good order. If you have a faulty motherboard, CPU, and/or RAM, you might not be able to do anything and could end up losing precious data if you manage to forcefully "encourage" it.
Anthony,
There are no apparent hardware problems, but as I said this machine is ancient.
The hardware is a Dell T110 server (https://www.dell.com/downloads/emea/products/t110_spec_sheet.pdf)%C2%A0orig inally purchased circa 2010. It came with Windows Small Business Server, which I replaced with CentOS 7 when it was released in 2014. I also replaced the original Windows-only RAID card in 2014 with a Dell update that supports a 4 x 500GB Linux software RAID5. All other hardware is original, and I hate to think what the hard drive bearings must look like after more than 87,000 power-on hours.
I might be able to use a C7 Live DVD with the external eSATA interface to dd the contents of the boot drive to a spare, but that might just copy a damaged LVM that still resists e2fsck.
--Doc