Ext3 users - Mar 2009 - external journal lost

Hello,

i got a problem after i switched from an in-filesystem journal to an
external journal on my soft-raid5 + lvm2 +ext3 volume.

The Procedure was:
- umount the volume
- fsck -fy /dev/vg/space
- tune2fs -O ^has_journal /dev/vg/space
- create a 400M extended partition on my fast disk (sda)
- mke2fs -O journal_dev -L space-journal /dev/sda6
- tune2fs -o journal_data -j -J device=/dev/sda6 /dev/vg/space
- mount the volume, everything seems ok
- while moving some files around i noticed "attempt to write beyond end
  of device sda6" as well as "read-only filesystem" errors
- umount the volume (clean)
- reboot the system and removed the external journal partition to move
  it elsewhere

here began my Main Problem:
1.      tune2fs -O ^has_journal /dev/vg/space
        "fs has needs_recovery set, please fsck"
2.      fsck complains about a wrong uuid of the journal dev when
        used with a newly created and i cant see how to force mke2fs to
give
        it a particular uuid (the one of the old journal partition) so i
        cant fsck the volume

3.      man tune2fs says to me that there is the -f switch for this kind
        of accidents, but it gives me the same "fs has needs_recovery
set,
        please fsck"

I dont think the fs should be needs_recovery and i dont get why
        tune2fs -f -O ^has_journal /dev/vg/space
doesnt forcefully remove the flag like said in the manpage.

I am running debian5, linux 2.6.26-1-686, tune2fs 1.41.3

Please someone share your wisedom

greetings
Felix Resch

Hi,

today i realised that tune2fs is able to change the uuid of the journal
(partition/fs?) so i was able to fsck the volume and i am looking 
forward to get it back online within the day.

Thouh i am still unclear about the semantics of the 'force' flag of 
tune2fs.
Any hints?

greets 
Felix Resch