Subject: Evidence of Drive Activity to Report

From: Michael Hill <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 9 May 1998 23:05:22 -0400 (EDT)

Using the pre-compiled 2.1.99 from Linus (thanks, Alex) here are my
results.  The drive is (and was) partitioned as option drive, and I
re-ran Installer.  Entering 'boot /vmlinux root=/dev/sdb' I get this:

[snip]
scsi : detected 2 SCSI disks total.
SCSI device sda: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 1070496 [522 MB]
[0.5 GB]
SCSI device sdb: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 2400302 [1172 MB]
[1.2 GB]
sgiseeq.c: David S. Miller ([email-masked])
eth0: SGI Seeq8003 08:00:69:07:e3:0d
Partition check:
 sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4
 sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3
fat_read_super: Did not find valid FSINFO signature. Found 0x0
[MS-DOS FS Rel. 12,FAT 0, check=n,conv=b,uid=o,gid=0,umask=022,bmap]
[me=0x0,cs=0,#f=0,fs=0,fl=0,ds=0,de=0,data=0,se=8199,ts=524288,ls=30825,rc=0,fc=0]
Transaction block size = 512

However, with 'boot /vmlinux root=/dev/sdb1' I get this:

[snip]
scsi : detected 2 SCSI disks total.
SCSI device sda: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 1070496 [522 MB]
[0.5 GB]
SCSI device sdb: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 2400302 [1172 MB]
[1.2 GB]
sgiseeq.c: David S. Miller ([email-masked])
eth0: SGI Seeq8003 08:00:69:07:e3:0d
Partition check:
 sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4
 sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 32k freed
INIT: version 2.71 booting
Activating swap partitions
hostname: localhost
Checking root filesystems.
WARNING: Your /etc/fstab does not contain the fsck passno
        field.  I will kludge around things for you, but you
        should fix your /etc/fstab file as soon as you can.

Parallelizing fsck version 1.10 (24-Apr-97)
[/sbin/fsck.ext2] fsck.ext2 -a /

..and then nothing.  But the main reason I believe that the SGI/Linux
project is not dead is that, for the first time, the kernel made my
hard drive chatter at me before giving up the ghost.

Who knows what I should do next?

Mike
-- 
Michael Hill
Toronto, Canada
[email-masked]

---

From: Michael Hill <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 May 1998 15:20:32 -0400 (EDT)

Okay, let's say it was just fsck that got hung up, and not the entire
boot process.  When it stops with '[/sbin/fsck.ext2] fsck.ext2 -a /'
and I press Ctrl-C, more information comes to light:

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem.  If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else, the the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
    e2fsck -b 8193 <device>
*** An error occurred during the file system check.
*** Dropping you to a shell; the system will reboot
*** when you leave the shell.
Give root password for maintenance.
INIT: entering runlevel: 0mal startup):
while opening UTMP file: No such file or directory

...then I get the SGI maintenance screen back.  There's no evidence of
a shell when it tells me it's dropping me to a shell.  From IRIX I ran
'e2fsck -b 8193 drive' on the drive (with no improvement) but I don't
think that's the appropriate context.  Suggestions?

Thanks,

Mike
-- 
Michael Hill
Toronto, Canada
[email-masked]

---

From: Eric Kimminau <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 May 1998 23:19:23 -0400

I had the exact same problem - I needed to re-make the ext2fs
filesystem on the drive and re-perform the install for it to get
further.

Eric.

-- 
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---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 09:33:14 +0200

> > think that's the appropriate context.  Suggestions?

Both cases sound like a bad /etc/fstab.  Try adding init=/bin/sh to your
firmware command like arguments.  You'll get a completly uninitialized
system.   Run e2fsck, then you should be able to remount / rw and fix
the fstab.

>                 ** -- not for redistribution -- **

And that in a .sig.  ROTFL.  But at least Amy Postnews would love such a
sig :-)

  Ralf

---

From: Michael Hill <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 May 1998 15:43:05 -0400 (EDT)

> system.   Run e2fsck, then you should be able to remount / rw and fix

What should fstab look like?  Mine has a single entry (with
root-be-0.03) for /proc.

I get a bash prompt but e2fsck hangs.

Mike
-- 
Michael Hill
Toronto, Canada
[email-masked]

---

From: Leon Verrall <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 09:35:06 +0100 (BST)

> I get a bash prompt but e2fsck hangs.

Using root-be.0.03.cpio I had to hack some stuff around. /etc/fstab doesn't
contain a listing for / so fsck fails in /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit. I'd add this
entry in but I also hard coded /dev/sdc2 (my root) into rc.sysinit as the
mount command in this root-be doesn't seem to like mounting from fstab
entries....

Boot with vmlinux root=whatever init=/bin/sh
mount -t ext -n -o remount,rw /dev/myrootdevice /
vi /etc/rc.sysinit  and /etc/fstab
logout.

You may also want to 'touch /fastboot' . This will skip the fsck on boot.
(probably a dangerous thing ATM :)

Leon

-- 
Leon Verrall - 01189 307734  \ "Don't cut your losses too soon,
Secondline Software Support  / 'cos you'll only be cutting your throat.
Silicon Graphics, Forum 1,   \ And answer a call while you still care at all
Station Rd., Theale, RG7 4RA / 'cos nobody will if you wont" (6:00 - DT)

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 11:12:37 +0200

> mount command in this root-be doesn't seem to like mounting from fstab

Ouch, that must be a very obsolete mount binary.

> (probably a dangerous thing ATM :)

I consider the whole /fastboot thing obsolete.  Only fsck knows
if a filesystem is broken or not.  Oh well, the things we do for Minix ...

  Ralf