Is my DTivo Partition corrupt? (Says to use e2fsck)

[Allistah]

Hey all..

I hooked up a serial cable to my DSR704 DirecTivo and I noticed that when it boots up there are numerous messages at various points in the boot process that say this:

EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended

Is this normal? If not, how do I run a check on the partition to make sure everything is ok? If it's not ok, how do I run a utility to fix up the partition?

Any help would be appreciated.

-Allistah

[PlainBill]

IIRC, that message normally occurs as it prepares to mount /var (partition 9). If you examine the serial console output, you will see that it next runs e2fsck.

If it occurs when mounting the root partition (4 or 7), then it might be a good idea to run e2fsck. The exact syntax escapes me, an advanced search (specifying results by post, not thread) for e2fsck in this forum will give you the exact syntax.

PlainBill

[Allistah]

Actually, after a few reboots of the machine all of these errors went away by themselves. :-)

-Allistah

[DavePurz]

The command to use is:

e2fsck -y /dev/hda(root)

where (root) is 4 or 7 depending on your system.

All it takes is a few 'moves' of tivoapp (after applying patches) to fill the directory and this usually takes care of it.

--Dave

[PlainBill]

Dave, thanks for posting the correct syntax.

Allistah, it is NORMAL to see file system errors on /var when the system starts; no special effort is make to shut it down cleanly. Error on the root file system are another matter.

PlainBill

[Allistah]

I had all my stuff in /var/hack and then it all was deleted. I've seen some people post that this can happen in /var. To fix the problem I made a dir off the root called hack and put all the stuff there.

Is this the best place for this kind of stuff? Are there any issues with where I put it? (/hack)

Thanks,

-Allistah

[PlainBill]

I had all my stuff in /var/hack and then it all was deleted. I've seen some people post that this can happen in /var. To fix the problem I made a dir off the root called hack and put all the stuff there.

Is this the best place for this kind of stuff? Are there any issues with where I put it? (/hack)

Thanks,

-Allistah
The problem was understated. In my experience, sooner or later /var WILL get wiped and rebuilt. Your solution is fine. I happened to call mine /tivotools, other use /hack, others may name it after their dog. Whatever floats your boat.

The only issue arises with programs which expect to be installed in a rw partition (mfs-ftp). The easy fix is to install it in the /hack directory, then make a symlink to the log file in /var/logs or wherever.

PlainBill