[Bio-Linux] biolinux wont boot

[Tim Booth]

Hi Jarrod,

The error "unable to read inode block" suggests to me that your disk is
failing.  The only other reason for getting a serious error like this
out of the blue would be if the machine had lost power suddenly, but
unless you know that has happened it is likely that you are going to
need to replace the drive.

The first thing to do is to boot from a recovery CD and take a look.  I
generally use Knoppix (knopper.net).  You'll need to download and burn a
CD image.

The second thing is to see what data you can access from the recovery CD
and tar it up to somewhere safe like a network share or removable disk.

Then see which partition or partitions cannot be mounted via Knoppix.
Once you have got any data you need off the good partitions, you can try
running fsck on the problem partitions.  Fsck may fail, or it may fix
things completely, or it may work but you will still have problems
reading the disk.  If things are fixed completely you should be able to
reboot back into Bio-Linux, but remember that your disk may still be on
the verge of packing in.

If Knoppix can't fix the disk you will have to get a replacement disk
from Dell and recover from the disaster recovery partition on the second
hard drive.  We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

If you need and help with the above then give me a call on 018656 281
975.

I'll copy this mail thread into the helpdesk system to keep track of it.

Cheers,

TIM

On Mon, 2007-06-11 at 10:18 +0100, Jarrod Hadfield wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've jsut got back from holiday, to find I ca no longer log onto my  
> biolinux machine.  I get the message 'fsck died with exit status 4"   
> I get prompted for the root password for maintenance, but get no joy  
> = "unable to read inode block".  As far as I'm aware, the only thing  
> that happened since I've been away, is that soemone tried to drag  
> some stuff off onto a USB  stick.  Could this be the cause of the  
> problem.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Jarrod
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Tim Booth <tbooth at ceh.ac.uk>
NERC Environmental Bioinformatics Centre 
at CEH Oxford
+44 1865 281 975