Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Recurring problem in root filesystem
Message-ID: <4025@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 5 Sep 90 18:36:39 GMT
References: <1990Sep02.232056.9063@pilikia.pegasus.com> <4010@auspex.auspex.com> <1990Sep04.175054.17770@pilikia.pegasus.com>
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 23

>What do you mean, good luck??  I've run fsck on the unmounted hard disk
>root filesystem on my system here, just boot with your disaster disk
>and away you go ;^).  It's not impossible.

But it can be a nuisance, especially if you don't have a "disaster
disk".  You might have to e.g. read in your distribution tape into the
"mini-root" and run from there, if you have a system with the
"mini-root" notion.

>Besides, the point I was making was that the message he was getting was
>*probably* due to his running fsck on the mounted root file system.

But if he gets it all the time, it may not exactly be convenient to run
"fsck" from some other root file system every time....

>The wrong inode count will always occur because of the scratch file fsck
>creates.

Assuming he has an "fsck" that creates a scratch file.  I don't *think*
he's running 4.2BSD or later, as their "fsck" doesn't have the message
he describes.  4.1BSD's might, and it might not bother with a scratch
file.  S5R3's doesn't create one by default, it only does so when run
with the "-t" flag.