From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Mar 25 04:25:46 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8CFC216A4CE for ; Fri, 25 Mar 2005 04:25:46 +0000 (GMT) Received: from web53908.mail.yahoo.com (web53908.mail.yahoo.com [206.190.36.218]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 0973443D41 for ; Fri, 25 Mar 2005 04:25:46 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from stheg_olloydson@yahoo.com) Received: (qmail 12350 invoked by uid 60001); 25 Mar 2005 04:25:45 -0000 Comment: DomainKeys? See http://antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; b=YzQzTqPCkO63qiklIXcSNGPhku1420lI1OF1Z90/9bKh+VdNmHQh2h20+iow2KEiQsHg4pP0TshhduF09R/bR9eRLrA4zg3QhlRbq9Bon2agqUmt6IOMWu/p+3tyYGD5tG+JBbYMJM9MDgytSWHwdiON0VOeE8ZuKgFyre1wWOE= ; Message-ID: <20050325042545.12348.qmail@web53908.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [68.210.9.63] by web53908.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Thu, 24 Mar 2005 20:25:45 PST Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 20:25:45 -0800 (PST) From: stheg olloydson To: Ralph In-Reply-To: 6667 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cannot boot 5.3 after power failure - major bug? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 04:25:46 -0000 it was said: > --- stheg olloydson wrote: > > it was said: > > > > >>>Well you can try to boot manually it may work. > > type the > > >>>following at the boot prompt > > >>> > > >>>0:ad(0,a)/boot/loader > > >>>OR > > >>>0:ad(0,a)/boot/kernel > > >> > > >>Ooops I guess the last one is > > 0:ad(0,a)/boot/kernel > > >>Sorry > > >> > > > > > >Oh man I hat keyboard shortcuts. just pasted the > > wrong one > > >again. > > > > > >0:ad(0,a)/boot/kernel/kernel Yup this is the > > one... I hope > > > > Hello, > > > > Thanks for the reply. I had tried that and kept > > getting the > > "invalid format" error. I am puzzled by the fact > > that I can get > > a directory list, but the boot loader thinks the > > format is > > wrong. Also it seems to be looking in /kernel and > > not > > /boot/kernel/. > > To work around the Disk 2 problem, I downloaded > > FreeSBIE and ran > > fsck from that. / reports as clean, but the box > > still does not > > boot. /usr and /home report HUGE numbers of > > uncorrectable errors > > and bad blocks. Tonight I am going to run SpinRite > > on the disk > > to see if the power outage really damaged the disk. > > (If it did, > > this will be the first time since the MFM/RLL disk > > days!) > > I will report the result of that test. Right now, I > > am thinking > > a power loss shutdown of 5.3 makes a system > > unrecoverable, but > > more of these tests are required before reaching > > that > > conclusion. > > Actually - I'd have to contradict that. I've been > running 5.3 on my fileserver on the home network, and > during the last few nasty storms my UPS didn't > survive, and died off 5 times in a week (yes, I > replaced it), and each time FreeBSD came back up like > a champ - no lost files (that I could find.. .yet) or > anything! . > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > stheg > > Hello, Thanks for that information. I have reached that conclusion myself based on two more tests. Both those times the system came up fine. The time the system did break is very strange. I ran a disk surface diagnostic and the platters are fine. The strange thing is I can mount the drive in another 5.3 system and read the files, but I cannot boot up the drive because I get an error that says "Invalid Format." Clearly something is broken in the boot process such that the process cannot recognize the filesystem type eventhough the data (except for some files in /var and /home) are intact. This seems to be similar to the problem that cell posted about that prompted my test in the first place. Odd that such a specific thing should break. Oh, well. Not the oddest thing I've seen an OS do by a longshot. Best regards, stheg __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com