...making Linux just a little more fun!
Thomas Adam [thomas.adam22 at gmail.com]
Sun, 26 Nov 2006 09:56:40 +0000
This is a continuation of a discussion from last month: http://linuxgazette.net/133/misc/lg/USB_Drive_Bad_Sectors.html - Kat
On Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 05:04:01PM -0400, Brandon M. Reynolds wrote:
> My problem is that I get file system corruption and "bad sectors" some > times, presumably due to an unclean shut down. I am using an ext2
That depends, based on the error you're getting. If they're actually bad sectors that's typically indicative of a much more serious hardware issue. If, however, running fsck on it repeatedly doesn't help, then it really is screwed.
> filesystem with the thinking that a journal would just wear out the > drive in a certain spot. Maybe that's not correct -- I am not sure if > the drive has a wear-leveling algorithm implemented or not.
Of course not -- software cannot determine that. Every piece of hardware has a finite life-span.
> Questions: > > 1. Is ext2 the right choice? Or would reiserfs be better? Vfat??
How long's a piece of string, and by-the-by what type of fish is that? VFAT would be good for cross-platform. Ext2 is good for read-only mount points. Ext3 is somewhat better thanks to the fact that it's ext2 with a journal bolted on to it. Reiserfs' killer feature is its developer (:P) and works well with lots of smaller, sporadic files.
> 2. Is their a quick way to detect bad sectors? I tried running e2fsck > -c but it has been 45 minutes so far!
man badblocks
> sd 5:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x08000002 > sdb: Current: sense key=0x3 > ASC=0x11 ASCQ=0x0 > end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 598730
It's screwed, Backup whatever you can from it, and bin it. -- Thomas Adam
-- "Wanting to feel; to know what is real. Living is a lie." -- Purpoise Song, by The Monkees.
Brandon M. Reynolds [breynolds at comtime.com]
Sun, 26 Nov 2006 16:18:36 -0500
>> 1. Is ext2 the right choice? Or would reiserfs be better? Vfat?? > >How long's a piece of string, and by-the-by what type of fish is that? >VFAT would be good for cross-platform. Ext2 is good for read-only >mount points. Ext3 is somewhat better thanks to the fact that it's ext2 >with a journal bolted on to it. Reiserfs' killer feature is its >developer (:P) and works well with lots of smaller, sporadic files.
Ok, I get the fact the filesystems have their pros and cons (:P), but my = question was which filesystem is best for a general purpose Linux on a = USB flash drive.
> man badblocks
I realize e2fsck runs badblocks pogram, but I guess I am still unsure as = to why that resets the USB bus during the process.
>It's screwed, Backup whatever you can from it, and bin it.
I don't think so, but I came up with a whole different solution to my problem. I am using 3 ext2 paritions and a ramdisk. The first partition contains the OS and other static files. I use the other 2 partitions to periodically (1/hour) rsync the ram disk to the ext2 filesystem. I alternate between 2 paritions in case of a power failure. I was hoping that there would be some more automatic way of doing that. Maybe I should write my own filesystem, but then my wife would probably divorce me and I might go insane.
-Brandon Reynolds
Benjamin A. Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
Mon, 27 Nov 2006 17:37:18 -0500
On Sun, Nov 26, 2006 at 09:56:40AM +0000, Thomas Adam wrote:
> > Reiserfs' killer feature is its developer (:P) [ ... ]
Thomas... you're a bad, bad man. But that's only one of the reasons we
all like you. 
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *
Brian Bilbrey [bilbrey at orbdesigns.com]
Mon, 27 Nov 2006 19:49:24 -0500
Benjamin A. Okopnik wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 26, 2006 at 09:56:40AM +0000, Thomas Adam wrote: >> Reiserfs' killer feature is its developer (:P) [ ... ] > > Thomas... you're a bad, bad man. But that's only one of the reasons we > all like you.
My friend writes: The biggest reason I want to start up Fuck You Linux is to do a complete renaming of reiserfs to OJFS.
I replied: fsck --glove --fits /dev/sdd1
cue water passing through nasal passages.
.brian
-- Brian Bilbrey : http://www.orbdesigns.com/ "Kirk to Enterprise -- beam down yeoman Rand and a six-pack."