Forwarded message: request for help

[dan at Paragon.COM (Dan Demus)]

Prasad wrote-
   I am running Linux 1.3.4 with a 1GB SCSI drive on an Adaptec
   controller.  The SCSI drive is the root and complete file system of
   Linux. (There is also another 850MB IDE drive which is the C: drive of
   DOS/Windows)

   I was doing an innocuous find . -name foo -print, which gave me some
   warnings about bad directory blocks (sorry, do not remember exact
   error msg) - I proceeded to try to remove the files in the offending
   directory and the system just hung with a bunch of ext2-fs error msgs.

   When I rebooted from a backup floppy, the boot and hardware checks
   went ok - Linux 1.3.4 loaded ok from the disk but I got this error -

   EXT2-fs error (device 8/1): ext2_check_descriptors: Inode bitmap for
   group 20 not in group (block 131079)!
   EXT2-fs group descriptors corrupted.

   MSDOS Beta 0.6 (compatibility level 0.4, fast msdos)
   Mounting root
   VFS: Mounted root (umsdos filesystem) readonly

   The system hangs there.

   This seems like a disk block failure. I have lost a lot of work on
   this disk (I was about to setup some backup, but at this point I have
   none). Please, please help me out if you can.  I am even willing to
   pay for someone who might be willing to provide a solution.

Prasad-

I have seen this type of problem before.  Either the disk has some bad
blocks or the disk dosen`t spin up.  How old is the disk in question?

If the disk doesn`t spin up, the motor is gone so your hosed [spin up
is a whirring sound followed by a click]?  

If it does spin up, it may be possible to get some of the files back.
What I would recommend is attempting to recover the files and then
doing a lowlevel reformat [this function is accessable from ^a on
boot].

File recovery is tricky.  It involves booting to a root fs on floppy
and hand mounting the partitions.  The files can then be copied to
your DOS disk for backup.

The reformat will find all bad sectors on the disk and remove
references to these parts of the disk.  I wouldn`t trust valuable data
to this disk without backup though.  

Anyone-
The Linux Journal has an ad for: BRU Backup Restore Utility.  Has
anyone tried it?  Does anyone recommend anything else?  Has anyone
tried any on-line backup services via the Internet?


		Dan Demus
		dan at paragon.com
		(617)937-9800x242