Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:36:23 -0400 From: PJ <af.gourmet@videotron.ca> To: Roland Smith <rsmith@xs4all.nl> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: how to boot or access problem file system Message-ID: <4A7339A7.4010303@videotron.ca> In-Reply-To: <20090730220618.GA40281@slackbox.xs4all.nl> References: <4A71DB2A.4040401@videotron.ca> <20090730190458.GA36265@slackbox.xs4all.nl> <4A71F297.1080903@videotron.ca> <20090730220618.GA40281@slackbox.xs4all.nl>
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Roland Smith wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 03:20:55PM -0400, PJ wrote:
>
>> Roland Smith wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 01:40:58PM -0400, PJ wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> What can be done to access a file system that seems to have the boot
>>>> sector screwed up?
>>>>
>
> I forgot to mention that your boot sector is fine. If it were screwed
> up, you wouldn't get to the boot prompt.
>
> Since the boot code cannot locate your kernel, there are several things
> that could have gone wrong. See below.
>
> <snip>
>
>>>> The /usr files should be ok but how to access?
>>>>
>>> Use fsck_ffs to try and repair the filesystem.
>>>
>>>
>> how can I use it if I can't boot or access the file system?
>>
>
> Use a livefs cd or use the Fixit option in the main menu of sysinstall
> on an install disk. That should get you a shell where you can run
> fsck_ffs on your disk partitions.
>
> If you have booted from CD, list the disk devices with e.g. 'ls
> /dev/ad*'. If you have SCSI drives, use 'da' instead of 'ad'.
> What does that command list? On my machine, I'll get
> something like this:
>
> /dev/ad4 /dev/ad4s1d /dev/ad6 /dev/ad6s1d
> /dev/ad4s1 /dev/ad4s1e /dev/ad6s1 /dev/ad6s1e
> /dev/ad4s1a /dev/ad4s1f /dev/ad6s1a /dev/ad6s1f
> /dev/ad4s1b /dev/ad4s1g /dev/ad6s1b /dev/ad6s1g
> /dev/ad4s1c /dev/ad4s1g.eli /dev/ad6s1c /dev/ad6s1g.eli
>
> If you only see e.g. /dev/ad4 and /dev/ad6, your slice table has been
> overwritten (with fdisk) and your data is lost. If you see /dev/ad4s1
> but not /dev/ad4s1a-g, the BSD partitions have been removed and your
> data is lost as well.
>
> Since there is only one slice on both ad4 and ad6 (otherwise you'd see
> /dev/ad4s2x) The next step is to examine the disk labels:
>
> bsdlabel /dev/ad4s1
> # /dev/ad4s1:
> 8 partitions:
> # size offset fstype [fsize bsize bps/cpg]
> a: 1024000 16 4.2BSD 2048 16384 64008
> b: 16777216 1024016 swap
> c: 976768002 0 unused 0 0 # "raw" part, don't edit
> d: 4194304 17801232 4.2BSD 2048 16384 28528
> e: 104857600 21995536 4.2BSD 2048 16384 28528
> f: 41943040 126853136 4.2BSD 2048 16384 28528
> g: 807971826 168796176 4.2BSD 2048 16384 0
>
> This tells us that the a, d, e, f and g partition are carrying a BSD
> filesystem, and should be checked with fsck_ffs.
>
> Try these steps and report back what you find.
>
>
>>>> I don't have a problem with irrecoverable files, I would just finally
>>>> understand how things work and what can be done on FBSD.
>>>>
>>> Make regular backups. Especially before big upgrades.
>>>
>>>
>> Maybe the real problem is that the manual is too screwed up (why are
>> there so many problems being brought up on the mailing lists? we can't
>> all be that stupid.)
>>
>
> It is a mailing list for questions. Ipso facto you'll see questions and
> problems on this list. People who are not having problems will not be
> posting very much. :-)
>
> As to the handbook, this is by necessity written by people who are
> knowledgeable on the subject they write on. Unfortunately this sometimes
> lead to really basic steps/assumptions being skipped because they are
> self-evident for the writer. If you gain enough knowledge about a
> subject it becomes really hard to write for people new to the system
> because you've internalized a lot of stuff by then.
>
> If you have specific questions about parts of the handbook, ask.
>
>
> Roland
>
Thanks for replying Roland,
I've been struggling with upgrading 7.0 to 7.2... it has taken a lot of
my time and I am still not happy.
I have it running now; Xorg finally came through but I have absolutely
no idea how or why it finally started working. Actually, it was my last
attempt to start it and I was totally surprised that it came up. I
decided to try my former xorg.conf file which had the correct mouse
driver etc. that hal did not find. X -configure was useless and totally
off the track and tweaking the xorg.conf.new file did not work. In total
desperation I had installed all the xorg files needed or not and hoped
that might help... at first, it did not, at least I couldn't tell as
there was no change. But getting flashplayer to work... that's an
impossibility as I can see on this machine. Nor does gnash work... it
installs and shows up under about:plugins on Firefox... but that's as
far as it goest... same for flashplayer9 and linux-f8-flashplayer10
can't find the files to download ( but a few days ago they were
available and worked on the amd64 system).
Anyway... back to the messed up 7.1 installation.
I ran livefs 7.1 and chose option 6 (I think; it was the last on the
list) and I got the boot cursor (I think) ... so I entered? and got the
list of commands. BTW, I don't know where to find some instructions on
how to use the livefs and the command line procedures to work with to do
a reccovery. For one, I find that the screen scrolls by so fast, I miss
half of what is going on and I don't know how to get more to work... it
never has before...
I finally got a list of the devices with lsdev and thatgives me
cd devices:
cd0: Device 0x1
disk devices:
disk0: BIOS drive a:
disk1: BIOS drive C:
disk1s1: Unknown fs: 0x7 (I think this must be ntfs ? but ? )
disk2: BIOS drive D:
disk3: BIOS drive E:
disk3s1a: FFS
disk3s1b: swap
disk3s1d: FFS
disk3s1e: FFS
disk3s1f: FFS
pxe devices:
======
ls shows what apears to be the filesystem: a couple of files and
directories ======
using more to read files, I found that the file system does not appear
to be what I had... for example, rc.conf doesn't exist; which leads me
to believe that what I am looking at is some default stuff for setup
How can I see all the commands? They scroll by too fast. What's the use
of having such help when you can't see the output? This has always been
a deterrent for me to try to delve deeper into FBSD... doesn't anyone in
FreeBSD-land ever think about the enduser? I, for one, expect things to
be intuitive if not logical and I just don't find it here of in the
manuals...which, BTW, show up through Google in different forms and
configurations.
How do I see the contents of the other disks as I seem to be looking at
disk3? Is it possible to switch to another disk and see what is there?
--
Hervé Kempf: "Pour sauver la planète, sortez du capitalisme."
-------------------------------------------------------------
Phil Jourdan --- pj@ptahhotep.com
http://www.ptahhotep.com
http://www.chiccantine.com/andypantry.php
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