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Date:      Wed, 18 Oct 2000 18:47:10 -0500
From:      "G. Adam Stanislav" <adam@whizkidtech.net>
To:        questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Help, I can't boot FreeBSD anymore
Message-ID:  <3.0.6.32.20001018184710.00923eb0@mail85.pair.com>

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Hello, Brian,

I was wondering if you could help me here: I was working on some FreeBSD
software (called tabs), and wanted to test its output when called 4 billion
times.

I typed:

	tabs 9999999999 > /dev/null

It was supposed to write 4 bil tabs to stdout, redirected to /dev/null.

After a while, I interrupted it with ^C, and did cd /dev; ls -lad null (as
root).

To my surprise, null was actually a huge file filled with tabs. I deleted
it (rm null), then I did ln -s zero null.

After a while I had to go, so I typed shutdown -p now, and turned the
computer off when the shutdown was completed.

The problem is, I cannot boot now. The boot process goes fine until it writes:

/dev/rwd0s2e: 218 files, 5205 used, 55018 free (42 frags, 6872 blocks, 0.1%
fragmentation)

Then it just keeps accessing the hard drive (at least the LED is on)
forever. After about 10 minutes I just turned it off, booted Windows, and
have no idea what to do? Can you help? This is FreeBSD 3.1.

Thanks,
Adam

P.S. Please CC replies directly to me: I am not a questions subscriber.


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