Ext3 users - Jul 2001 - Ok, Im an idiot. Can't remount the ext3 filesystem because I deleted the /.jounral file...

Hello everyone,

Ok, I admit it - I'm an idiot.  But it seemed the right thing to do at
the time....  I'm running RH 6.2 with a 2.2.19ext3 (ext3 0.0.7). 
I wanted to try out the new 2.4 kernel line, so I upgraded modutils, gcc
and few other things..  Compiled the kernel (did NOT patch it to ext3)
and installed it and rebooted.  Well, it didn't understand ext3 fs.. Ok...
Boot back into the old 2.2.19ext3 in single user mode and edit fstab
back to ext2, remounted the drives in ro and rebooted (so they were
cleanly unmounted).  2.4 comes up fine, (other than it didn't see my
NE2000 generic dlink cards)  Well, it's starting to get late and I
didn't
want to muck with getting the NICs going and learning iptables so I
decided to go back to the 2.2.19ext3 kernel... So I boot into a 2.2.19
(non-ext3 aware) kernel and was getting ready to change fstab back to
ext3...  Then I got to thinking that when the ext3 kernel comes back up
it will compare the journal file and the FS and find differences (FS has
changed due to 2.4 kernel boot messages, syslog, etc.,..) and might
trash the system...  I figured I could rerun tune2fs and have it rebuild
the journal file (like I did when I first converted from ext2 to ext3..) 
Well, it said it already had a journal file.  Ok, lets delete it (WTF was
I thinking...)  Couldn't delete it (extended attrs) so I take a quick
look with lsattr and see its +id.   So I removed the attrs and delete
the file.  Try to rerun tune2fs -j to rebuild the journal, it still says
it already has a journal file... Ok, fine.  Ill just boot back up into
2.2.19 (non-ext3) with the FS as ext2 and worry about that later....
Well, now whenever I boot I get "EXT2-FS: ide (3,1): Couldn't mount
because of
unsupported optional features."  So I try booting back into 2.2.19ext3...
Well, again the kernel panics because it says it needs to rebuild the FS
but theres no journal present.  At that point I turned the machine off
and went to bed. =)  I figure I have a recoverable file system, but I
don't know how proceed.  Can anyone offer a suggestion on how to get it
back up and running?  (this is a masq/gateway box at home so I don't
want to rebuild it if at possible...)  Or am I outta fscking (pardon the
pun) luck?


Signed, 
An idiot

-NEM

tune2fs /dev/hda -O ^has_journal
Then you should be able to fsck it.

________________________________________
Michael D. Black   Principal Engineer
mblack@csihq.com  321-676-2923,x203
http://www.csihq.com  Computer Science Innovations
http://www.csihq.com/~mike  My home page
FAX 321-676-2355
----- Original Message -----
From: "NEM" <nemesis2@audioauthority.com>
To: <ext3-users@redhat.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2001 9:58 AM
Subject: Ok, Im an idiot. Can't remount the ext3 filesystem because I
deleted the /.jounral file...


Hello everyone,

Ok, I admit it - I'm an idiot.  But it seemed the right thing to do at
the time....  I'm running RH 6.2 with a 2.2.19ext3 (ext3 0.0.7).
I wanted to try out the new 2.4 kernel line, so I upgraded modutils, gcc
and few other things..  Compiled the kernel (did NOT patch it to ext3)
and installed it and rebooted.  Well, it didn't understand ext3 fs.. Ok...
Boot back into the old 2.2.19ext3 in single user mode and edit fstab
back to ext2, remounted the drives in ro and rebooted (so they were
cleanly unmounted).  2.4 comes up fine, (other than it didn't see my
NE2000 generic dlink cards)  Well, it's starting to get late and I
didn't
want to muck with getting the NICs going and learning iptables so I
decided to go back to the 2.2.19ext3 kernel... So I boot into a 2.2.19
(non-ext3 aware) kernel and was getting ready to change fstab back to
ext3...  Then I got to thinking that when the ext3 kernel comes back up
it will compare the journal file and the FS and find differences (FS has
changed due to 2.4 kernel boot messages, syslog, etc.,..) and might
trash the system...  I figured I could rerun tune2fs and have it rebuild
the journal file (like I did when I first converted from ext2 to ext3..)
Well, it said it already had a journal file.  Ok, lets delete it (WTF was
I thinking...)  Couldn't delete it (extended attrs) so I take a quick
look with lsattr and see its +id.   So I removed the attrs and delete
the file.  Try to rerun tune2fs -j to rebuild the journal, it still says
it already has a journal file... Ok, fine.  Ill just boot back up into
2.2.19 (non-ext3) with the FS as ext2 and worry about that later....
Well, now whenever I boot I get "EXT2-FS: ide (3,1): Couldn't mount
because
of
unsupported optional features."  So I try booting back into 2.2.19ext3...
Well, again the kernel panics because it says it needs to rebuild the FS
but theres no journal present.  At that point I turned the machine off
and went to bed. =)  I figure I have a recoverable file system, but I
don't know how proceed.  Can anyone offer a suggestion on how to get it
back up and running?  (this is a masq/gateway box at home so I don't
want to rebuild it if at possible...)  Or am I outta fscking (pardon the
pun) luck?


Signed,
An idiot

-NEM




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On Wed, Jul 18, 2001 at 09:58:16AM -0400, NEM wrote:
> Can anyone offer a suggestion on how to get it
> back up and running?  (this is a masq/gateway box at home so I don't
> want to rebuild it if at possible...)  Or am I outta fscking (pardon the
> pun) luck?
Boot on a rescue disk (floppy or CD) and do:
	tune2fs -O '^has_journal' /dev/hda
	fsck.ext2 /dev/hda

At this point you have again a working ext2 filesystem, which you
can of course reconvert to ext3 with tune2fs -j.

Stelian.
-- 
Stelian Pop <stelian.pop@fr.alcove.com>
|---------------- Free Software Engineer -----------------|
| Alcôve - http://www.alcove.com - Tel: +33 1 49 22 68 00 |
|------------- Alcôve, liberating software ---------------|

Mike, Stelian;

	Wow! Thanks guys, I REALLY appreciate the fast responses.
Now to wait till I can get home from work and try it out. =)

-NEM