[PLUG] Busted computer

John Jason Jordan johnxj at comcast.net
Wed Oct 17 07:00:19 UTC 2007


On Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:47:34 -0700
"Bill Barry" <bill at billbarry.org> wrote:

> > I am about to run:
> >
> > e2fsck -f -b 32768 /dev/hda2
> >
> > But before I do it and end up destroying western civilization, I
> > thought I might ask here first to see if my thinking is correct.
> >
> 
> Might work, I would install testdisk. There is a deb package so I
> assume there is an ubuntu one also.I remember it being able to repair
> this superblock problem. On the other hand western civilization does
> not have much left so go ahead, destroy what is left.

Well, I did it. For future reference, a switch that would tell e2fsck
"just make all the changes you need to and don't bug me about it
because I wouldn't understand your messages anyway" would have been
useful. I ended up having to hit "y" several thousand times.

When it finished it seems to have repaired the superblock and most of
the other problems, except evidently something Ubuntu needs in order to
boot got deleted or moved, because the boot screen starts and then
hangs. 

I booted again to the Ubuntu live CD and I can mount the
filesystem, but it won't let me move files or anything. So now I'm
going to boot to Knoppix, mount the fileystem as root, copy ~/home to
DVDs, and then let things sit until Thursday when Gutsy finally comes
out. Then I will wipe the hard disk and start over again from scratch.
Dapper was the last time I did a clean install instead of an upgrade,
so it's probably not a bad idea, in spite of the PITA it will be to
reinstall over a hundred apps and reconfigure everything. And while
waiting I will shop for a new laptop.

Western civilization cheated death yet again.




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