[SOLVED] filesystem check error borks boot

[zlg]

I went to boot Gentoo this morning and was met with a series of errors that result in an unset hostname and a read-only filesystem. I had to reboot a few times to capture a picture with scroll lock:

http://imgur.com/vGTTK

There are a few more errors that appear but I can't capture (or read) them in time before agetty or whatever loads. What's strange to me is dosfsck is trying to run when I don't have any auto-mounted NTFS or FAT partitions. sda1 is /boot, ext2; sda2 is /, ext4; sda3 is /home, ext4; I believe this may have been caused by installing dosfstools (which I needed to do in order to format an SD card last night before bed). I haven't touched anything relating to the system in a few days, and it booted just fine last night...

Any ideas? I tried to load the rescue boot option and it didn't even get to a bash prompt...

PROBLEM: my `/etc/fstab` file had 2s in the last field for my not-necessary-at-boot filesystems.

SOLUTION: By changing the fields to zero (0), I told fsck not to check them at boot and avoided the problem. Thanks to BillWho for the /etc/fstab fix.

[DONAHUE]

when in the ro sort of booted state

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mount -o remount,rw /
emerge --unmerge dosfstools

if that doesn't work boot a cd, fsck any and all partitions, mount the gentoo partitions, enter the chroot,

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emerge --unmerge dosfstools

[BillWho]

sporkbox

fsck checks for a file /fastboot and if it exists it will skip filesystem checking.

Not sure about dosfsck, but it might be worth a shot. You might have to boot a live media to create the file or try remounting rw

As far as I know, fsck looks at fstab to determine filesystems to check.

[zlg]

sporkbox

fsck checks for a file /fastboot and if it exists it will skip filesystem checking.

Not sure about dosfsck, but it might be worth a shot. You might have to boot a live media to create the file or try remounting rw

As far as I know, fsck looks at fstab to determine filesystems to check.

I had seen something about /fastboot on some other threads I saw. I'll give that a shot. I also thought that I might've left something in fstab to automatically mount, but it doesn't look like it:

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# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# noatime turns off atimes for increased performance (atimes normally aren't 
# needed); notail increases performance of ReiserFS (at the expense of storage 
# efficiency).  It's safe to drop the noatime options if you want and to 
# switch between notail / tail freely.
#
# The root filesystem should have a pass number of either 0 or 1.
# All other filesystems should have a pass number of 0 or greater than 1.
#
# See the manpage fstab(5) for more information.
#

# <fs>			<mountpoint>	<type>		<opts>		<dump/pass>

# NOTE: If your BOOT partition is ReiserFS, add the notail option to opts.
/dev/sda1	/boot		ext2		noatime		1	2
/dev/sda2	/		ext4		noatime		0	1
/dev/sda3	/home		ext4		noatime		0	2
/dev/cdrom	/media/dvd	auto		noauto,ro,user	0	0

/dev/sdb1	/mnt/win7	ntfs-3g		noatime,noauto,user,rw,umask=0007,gid=100	0	2
/dev/disk/by-label/D2	/media/d2	vfat	noatime,noauto,rw,user,umask=0007,gid=100	0	2
/dev/sd	/media/sd	auto	noatime,noauto,rw,user	0	2

(Note: I'm accessing Gentoo's hard drive from Win7 with ext2fsd. It mostly works...)

DONAHUE: I'll go try that now. It's not worth having those tools installed if they're gonna cause problems.

EDIT (Now on Gentoo): Is it normal for the /fastboot file to disappear after booting? It's no longer there. At any rate, I was able to unmerge dosfstools. I'll reboot and see if it fixed the problem.

[BillWho]

/dev/sdb1 /mnt/win7 ntfs-3g noatime,noauto,user,rw,umask=0007,gid=100 0 2
/dev/disk/by-label/D2 /media/d2 vfat noatime,noauto,rw,user,umask=0007,gid=100 0 2
/dev/sd /media/sd auto noatime,noauto,rw,user 0 2

Change to

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/dev/sdb1   /mnt/win7   ntfs-3g      noatime,noauto,user,rw,umask=0007,gid=100   0   0
/dev/disk/by-label/D2   /media/d2   vfat   noatime,noauto,rw,user,umask=0007,gid=100   0   0
/dev/sd   /media/sd   auto   noatime,noauto,rw,user   0   0

EDIT (Now on Gentoo): Is it normal for the /fastboot file to disappear after booting? It's no longer there. At any rate, I was able to unmerge dosfstools. I'll reboot and see if it fixed the problem.

Yes, fastboot and /forcefsck ( which forces a check) will be removed...

[zlg]

/dev/sdb1 /mnt/win7 ntfs-3g noatime,noauto,user,rw,umask=0007,gid=100 0 2
/dev/disk/by-label/D2 /media/d2 vfat noatime,noauto,rw,user,umask=0007,gid=100 0 2
/dev/sd /media/sd auto noatime,noauto,rw,user 0 2

Change to

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/dev/sdb1   /mnt/win7   ntfs-3g      noatime,noauto,user,rw,umask=0007,gid=100   0   0
/dev/disk/by-label/D2   /media/d2   vfat   noatime,noauto,rw,user,umask=0007,gid=100   0   0
/dev/sd   /media/sd   auto   noatime,noauto,rw,user   0   0

Could you tell me what the difference is between 2 and 0 in the last field? Does changing them to zero simply disable them from automatic fsck'ing?

[BillWho]

fsck will assume that the filesystem does not need to be checked if set to 0. You should man fstab for more info

[zlg]

Alright, thanks. The fstab edit fixed it and allowed `dosfstools` to remain on my system.

I'll have to remember that remount trick though! Thanks a lot for the help, guys. I'll mark the topic solved.