[comp.unix.sysv386] ISC 2.0.2 possibly damaged file system

bhutch@shine7.waterloo.edu (10/10/90)

My ISC 2.0.2 has been producing the following NOTICE since I
reinstalled it after repartitioning the hard disk:

  NOTICE: bad free block count in free list block on Primary
  AT Hard Disk unit 0, partition 4

  mount: possibly damaged file system

Partition 4 is /usr2, a 40M partition on a 200M IDE HD. The message
is produced on booting the system, when it mounts this partition.
Apparently, there is no other problem generated by the supposedly
damaged file system. I am not an expert on system administration
but tried to use the checkhdfsys sysadm script to check the partitions
on my HD and all I got was a message saying that there were no
partitions which could be checked by that script. The Famous Manual
(for version 2.2 -- ISC gave me version 2.0.2 because version 2.2
does not support IDE drives, but this is a long story) says nothing
about this message. 

How can I fix the bad free block count? Is it possible to fix it?
Do I have to reinstall the whole thing? 

Another question is what is `gendev', the device which uses interrupt
vector 5 on /etc/conf/cf.d/sdevice ? Can I disable it to avoid a 
conflict with my Microsoft Bus Mouse? The Famous Manual doesn't
have anything on `gendev' either...

Thanks in advance,

J.R. Setti - The Transport Group, Civil Engineering - U of Waterloo

cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill) (10/11/90)

In article <1990Oct10.162042.29245@watserv1.waterloo.edu> bhutch@shine7.waterloo.edu writes:
>  NOTICE: bad free block count in free list block on Primary
>  AT Hard Disk unit 0, partition 4

This means that your system is not unmounting the partition during the 
shutdown.    If the system is automatically mounted during start-up, it 
should be auto-unmounted unless you have some processes that are getting
locked up on that partition, or have mounted something else on top of
that partition.

Anyway, this message is not a bad thing because the way that ISC works (with
it's fast file system) you will always get this if the file system was not
unmounted properly and it doesn't indicate any damage in itself.

>How can I fix the bad free block count? Is it possible to fix it?

You need to figure out why the partition is not being unmounted.

>Do I have to reinstall the whole thing? 

Shouldn't have to.  This, by itself, is not an indication of any problems
with the system installation.


>Another question is what is `gendev', the device which uses interrupt
>vector 5 on /etc/conf/cf.d/sdevice ? Can I disable it to avoid a 
>conflict with my Microsoft Bus Mouse? The Famous Manual doesn't
>have anything on `gendev' either...

gendev entries are part of the High Performance Disk Driver (HPDD) and all
the extra entries will be removed when you configure it. 

As root run kconfig, CONFIGURE KERNEL, COFIGURE HIGH...



-- 
Conor P. Cahill            (703)430-9247        Virtual Technologies, Inc.,
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