Re: Total loss with 2.4.0 (release)

[Trever Adams]

I had a similar experience.  All I can say is windows 98 
and ME seem to have it out for Linux drives running late 
2.3.x and 2.4.0 test and release.  I had windows completely 
fry my Linux drive and I lost everything.  I had some old 
backups and was able to restore at least the majority of 
older stuff.

Sorry and good luck.

> Hi all,
> 
> I managed to kill my dear files and if anyone can help 
I'd be very
> thankful. The events leading to this were something like:
> Happy system with 2.4.0-test9 -> update to 2.4.0 
(release) -> works
> nicely; no complaints of any kind (no crc errors or dma-
disabling) ->
> reboot -> play Diablo II for some time (win98) -> restart 
linux ->
> VFS: cannot mount root. 
> I have two ext2 partitions plus root and one of them is 
on another disk
> (same ide lead, however) and it survived with no errors.
> 
> When I ran e2fsck (1.18) on root partition, in addition 
to having to
> run it many times before succeeding (segfaulted 
sometimes), nothing was
> left in the partition except lost+found with lots of
> files. Valid superblock wasn't found at 0, but at 8193.
> 
> I really don't get what would have caused this or how to 
cure it. I still
> have my /home in need of repairing, but I won't be 
running fsck on it with
> this good expectancy-of-recovery (I actually tried once 
with a backup on
> another disk and it resulted two VERY old directoried, 
everything else was
> lost...and found(?)).
> 
> I also updated my machine from VIA MVP3 based K6II to VIA 
KT133 (with 868B
> southbridge - ATA100, that is) based Duron, but linux 
(2.4.0-test9) worked
> fine with both configurations. I think this might be some 
sort of DMA
> problem.  
> 
> I read from kernel notes that ac1 fixes root umount 
handling. Might that
> be connected with the symptoms I had? If anyone has any 
suggestions,
> please post them. I would, at least, like to know how 
could I verify if
> the filesystem is really messed (for example, overwritten 
with something
> at the bus at the time) or if it's just some minor issue 
that confuses
> fsck totally.
> 
> -- Heikki Lindholm
> 
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