Fedora 12 start up issue: EXT4-fs error (plz help! its urgent)

[gogaurav]

Greetings :)

INTRO:
I installed F12 from a DVD that I burned and it passed the disc check.
Its on an ext4 partition (made from the installation) on sda4.
I omitted making any /boot or swap partitions.
The boot-loader was installed on sda1 during installation.

PROBLEM:
F12 fails to start !
It hangs on the initial fedora logo. (sometimes reboots before that appears)
Keying ESC during the process shows varying errors at different times.
please help guys!

DETAIL 1:
EXT4-fs error (device sda4) in ext4_reserve_inode_write: Journal has aborted

Thanks..

[glennzo]

I believe that if you intend to use EXT4 you need to have a separate /boot partition or things just aren't going to work. Go through the posts in this (Aplha) forum and you may see one or two about EXT4.

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=229600
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_12_Alpha_release_notes#GRUB_with_Ext4_Suppo rt

[Stian1979]

to use ext4 you need grub2.
If you use grub-legacy you will need a separate boot partition containing some other file system.

[gogaurav]

thnx glennzo

ok as far as i know, F12 comes with a version of Grub that does support EXT4
and i get a similar error with ext3 as well!
plus the second thread says:
I've installed the alpha without /boot partition and / and /home where both ext4. So, F12 supports booting from ext4.

i am gonna re-install with a /boot partition as well now.. will tell what happens

[gogaurav]

thnx Stian!

do u mean ext4 on the / partition and ext3 on /boot partition
and installing bootloader on /boot should work?

[Stian1979]

thnx Stian!

do u mean ext4 on the / partition and ext3 on /boot partition
and installing bootloader on /boot should work?

ext4 file system is quite new and was implemented as stable at kernel 2.6.28.
Grub-legacy don't support this file system yet so you need to use grub2.
I don't know witch grub fedora come with this days, but if it's grub-legacy then you better go for ext3.
Just use ext3 for your whole system, but if you have the same problem with ext3 then I suspect it's other problems then the hardisk. fedora12 is still alpha so it could be that it's better to download fedora11.

You can for now safely droop ext3 since it's quite easy to convert it to ext4.
You must open /etc/fstab as root and change ext3 to ext4 and give a command in a terminal window that tell the system the file system is corrupt and it will automatically fix it to become ext4 on reboot.
I did this on both my running debian systems in just a few minutes

[gogaurav]

thnx Stian!

thats gonna help!
i shall get this done and report soon
gonna make just one ext3 partition /

[CSchwangler]

I had a similar problem after installing F12 Alpha. First, you don't need a ext3 /boot partition (I installed without and it ran fine), because the Grub in F12 supports booting from F12. However, as this is an Alpha, that doesn't say anything about how stable the support is.
My installation dropped me to a command line, said I had ext4 errors and asked to run fsck. Maybe your problem is the same, so you could try to get to runlevel 3 and run fsck.

[gogaurav]

UPDATE:
Now I installed using ext3 all over.

DETAIL:
.
.
.
Starting atd:
and the screen goes blank with a constant _ !

[jvillain]

This won't help you gogaurav as you are past grub now. But if any one wants to verify that their grub can read their boot partition there is a way to find out. When you get to grub go into command mode. That is the 'c' key if I remember right. It says on the grub screen. Then pick a partition. You do that by entering a command like

root (hd0,0)

Where the first digit is the hard drive and the second one is the partition. Then hit enter.

Next enter the command

kernel /

then hit the 'tab' key. If it lists a bunch of files then it is able to read the partition. If not it will let you know. If you have more than one hard drive and you think you hit the wrong one you can re-enter the root command again. Then try finding the kernel again.

If you are at this point and you need to rescue your system you can enter the path to your kernel along with any kernal commands you need like so some thing like

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.31-0.11.rc0.git13.fc12.i686.PAE ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet

Then press enter

Then enter initrd and hit tab for a listing and enter the initrd that matches your kernel and press enter.

Then just run the boot command.

There is a grub howto floating around on the net that is fairly understandable if you need more help. BTW if you are trying to boot to an old windows lost windows partition skip the kernel and initrd and try

root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

Hope that helps some one.

[SlowJet]

Greetings :)

INTRO:
I installed F12 from a DVD that I burned and it passed the disc check.
Its on an ext4 partition (made from the installation) on sda4.
I omitted making any /boot or swap partitions.
The boot-loader was installed on sda1 during installation.

PROBLEM:
F12 fails to start !
It hangs on the initial fedora logo. (sometimes reboots before that appears)
Keying ESC during the process shows varying errors at different times.
please help guys!

DETAIL 1:
EXT4-fs error (device sda4) in ext4_reserve_inode_write: Journal has aborted

Thanks..


From the guy who coded it.
http://osdir.com/ml/linux-ext4/2009-05/msg00350.html

Your install was flaky.
Most likely a disk that is about to fail or you omitted some details about the install. :)
Use some disk software to check the disk.
Check your cables, heat, power usage.

EXT4 is running very stable in F12 and the Fedora modified grub supports booting from ext4 (but not within an LVM). I suggest you make a swap partition because some of these new programs have huge virtual memory address requirements, plus any memory leak will eventually stop the system.

SJ

[gogaurav]

My installation dropped me to a command line, said I had ext4 errors and asked to run fsck. Maybe your problem is the same, so you could try to get to runlevel 3 and run fsck.

thnx CSshwangler..
that will help people
(in my case, the installation was cool)

This won't help you gogaurav as you are past grub now. But if any one wants to verify that their grub can read their boot partition there is a way to find out.

thnx jvillain..
yeah am past grub.. just stuck in the startup
does Starting.. atd: and the blank _
give some hint?


Your install was flaky.
SJ

I guess that's to conclude for now!
Either I gotta wait for the final release or I'll install F11 for now.
Or maybe try with another burn of F12..
Thnx SlowJet

That was so good of you all :)
will update you of further developments!

[jvillain]

Starting.. atd: and the blank _
give some hint?

Well at that point is is reading your root partition because it is finding atd as part of the init process. Does it come back with [OK] for atd or drop out before it prints OK or fail? If it prints [OK] then it is the service after it that is causing the problem. If you don't get the [OK] then it is atd it's self. If it is atd then try turning it off. From the command prompt do a

chkconfig atd off

if it is the itel after it then you need to find out who is next.

From the commmand line do a

ls ls /etc/rc5.d/*

You will notice that all the symlinks start with either 'S' or 'K' followed by a number. If it starts with 'S' then it gets started when you switch to that run level. eg 'init 3'. If it starts with 'K' it gets killed off when you leave that run level. The number indicates the order that they are processed in. S1xxx gets processed before S2bbb for example.

So you can have a look and see what the next process that is going to run is and turn it off. Or you can go to single user mode and manually run them one at a time until you find out who brings you down and skip it the next time. To get to single user mode you can add ' linux single' to the end of your boot prompt. To save some work you could try wlking up the run levels. Like 'init 2' then init 3' then 'init 5'. If you get to run level two but die switching to 3 then it is some thing that runs in 3 but not two that is bringing you down.

Also while you are at the command prompt do a

dmesg
less /var/log/bootlog
less /var/log/messages
less /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old
less /var/log/Xorg.0.log

If you find some one to point the finger at try using yum to uninstall and reinstall. And don't use flags to ignore dependancy checking etc. Those are in there for a reason. Solaris admins piss me off to no end when they run rpm -i --force --nodeps --noscripts some.rpm and then whine and ***** that Linux is unstable.

[Demz]

I believe that if you intend to use EXT4 you need to have a separate /boot partition or things just aren't going to work. Go through the posts in this (Aplha) forum and you may see one or two about EXT4.

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=229600
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_12_Alpha_release_notes#GRUB_with_Ext4_Suppo rt

Grub now supports EXT4 Glenn so it doesnt need to be same as F11 install

[Vector]

I suggest you make a swap partition because some of these new programs have huge virtual memory address requirements, plus any memory leak will eventually stop the system

I agree; you almost cannot even run a machine without swap any more. It is mandatory (implicitly)