disk inconsistency - should 'fsck' always executed with -y ?

[glenn at aoi.ultranet.com (Glenn Burkhardt)]

> c)  have someone on staff that can make smarter decisions than fsck, by
> looking at the remains of the filesystem, and patching data and inodes
> back to gether by hand (probably by recognizing fragments of files, and
> knowing what other fragments they belong to).

Do you know of anyone who actually does this?

> 
> generally speaking, it's much easier and cheaper to backup your data
> than to pay someone to fix filesystems with a hex editor.
> 
Agreed.  And we do back up all our systems.  However, restoring files from
backup is non-trivial, too.  Ordinary users without a sys admin person would
have a hard time.  For "home use", or "desktop use", it's asking a lot to
expect ordinary computer users to know to type in "fsck -y /dev/hda1" in
response to the "disk inconsistency" message.

> if you feel compelled to have the boot scripts 'fsck -y' on finding a
> problem, that should be fine...  but i think your efforts would be
> better spent making your systems/power/whatever more stable, in an
> attempt to be nicer to your filesystems, and unmount them properly after
> use.

I guess a UPS might be worth the money after all.  We don't have problems from
folks just switching off computers, just from unexpected power outages.  And
mostly, the normal operation of fsck is just fine.

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