Hard drive won't mount after previously working properly

[decalvas]

I have Knoppix 3.8 installed to hard drive, and have recently been unable to start from it, or mount it. e2fsck -f seems to report a clean system with reasonable figures as to files used; mount returns the message "wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda1, or too many file systems (or unfavorable astrological configuration, or you didn't say please and thank you...)" recently ran apt-get upgrade, it seemed to change a bunch of stuff but started and shut down normally several times afterward. When I start 3.8 from CD, /etc/fstab reports ext3 filesystem so that isn't it. Never took anything in the way of obscure options to mount before, don't think that's it. have another hard drive, but each has only one partition, don't think there's too many file systems. Judging from the error message (not always a reliable indication in itself) the only remaining problem area would appear to be the superblock and I wouldn't know where to start to fix it.

Can anyone point me in the direction of appropriate diagnostic procedures, and fixes? It appears that the filesystem itself is okay but there's a problem with hooking it up...

[sakiZ]

"recently ran apt-get upgrade,"

I believe I've found the source of your problem.

Always apt-get upDATE not .....upgrade. One of the perils of doing a HD install on this live CD.

I'm sorry. Do you have a backup you can fall back on?

sakiZ

[mr_ed]

Hi decalvas! Not a problem for you to flag this for me - I've been away from the forum.

sakiZ most likely has the right answer. Complex systems don't necessarily show that they're broken right away - sometimes the machinery has to run awhile until the gear with the broken tooth tries to mesh with the one that got pineapple grease all over it. THEN the leopard in Bronx turns purple.

If I were you (and be thankful I'm not!) I'd back all the data files to the other drive and install Debian sarge instead of Knoppix.

The other problem, of course, is that you're in Boulder. While you live there it's hard to see it, but when I moved away after 11 years I realized that Boulder's a gathering place for the forces of Darkness.

It's already too late to save Denver, but Colorado Springs should be safe for another few years. And if your system doesn't work there, take the hard drive on the cog train to the summit of Pikes Peak. Watch for the marmots and bighorn sheep while you chant, "Lycra gone! Lycra gone!"

When you get to the top (elevation 14,110 feet) throw the hard drive as far as you can. Katherine Lee Bates was inspired to write "America the Beautiful" there, so it's a place of major mojo in spite of the ghost of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

Or you could just switch to Debian.

-- Ed

[decalvas]

Thank you both for your replies. What I did was, backed up drive with Norton Ghost (read the filesystem just fine), repartitioned-formatted, restored with same, re-LILO'd, works like new. In other words, to my understanding, restored disk ID information, sort of a long way around. Hard to imagine how it got hosed but that's what imagination is for. Not to make odious comparisons but the redmond world seems to need this sort of assistance more often and actually has tools for it that one doesn't need advanced engineering degrees to use. What I mean is, to extend Ed's pre-cybernetic figure, a few years ago my 1972 Volvo wouldn't start, a couple teeth were broken off the flywheel gear, so the starter motor wouldn't engage if the motor was stopped in the wrong place. Could have just crushed it I suppose, but I loved the car, and still do, and they don't make them anymore, and you can't always just pop the clutch, like when the six year old loses the boot disk. So a day off ensued with Volvo transmission balanced on my chest, gear oil in my hair, pressed off old flywheel ring gear and pressed on new, and viola. In this case, distinguished from my recent hard drive trouble, I knew I had to do all this, and not just replace a bad starter solenoid.

I would have to research the difference between HD install from Knopper and straight out Debian before I went to the trouble again, actually tried D twice but the install failed both times for diverse reasons. Again, I have tried the two Stromberg carb setup on the Volvo, but the mechanical fuel injection just works for years at a time.

Ed, my fellow Coloradan, there is hope for Boulder. Whatever made it weird for the last several decades is being squeezed out by the inexorable force of gentrification. I'll never understand why they call it the People's Republic; a dear friend of mine's mother lived in the same apartment in Leningrad from 1928 until her death in 1995, and the rent stayed the same until 1991 when all of a sudden her daughter had to start sending money. Certainly not the way it's ever been around here. The real mutants simply can't afford it any more. There is a party game played amongst long time residents that goes, Boulder was a great place until (a) 1991 when the Californians invaded, (b) early 80s when all the freaks went yup, (c) early 70s when the hippies invaded, (d) 1965 when IBM came, (e) 1953 when Rocky Flats was built, (f) after the war when all the doggies who went through Fitzsimmons and Lowry came to stay...my favorite is (w) 1876 when they built the damn university and railroad, hogs couldn't sleep in the middle of Pearl Street anymore, ruined everything. Close second would be 1920s when there was an ordinance forbidding wearing hard hats or carrying lunchboxes downtown, damned ornery miners. I am personally safe outside city limits, in the greater Valmont metro area, and much of anything west of Folsom seems pretty alien. And when I really need purification, the Big Red Homeland to the northeast is always and forever there in all its McConaughey-Sand Hills pristinity.