[NTLUG:Discuss] Bad superblock on boot

[Chuck]

I have a problem with my laptop. This is a Toshiba CT7020CT 366MHz P II with 
192meg of ram and 20gig hard drive.  It has been running linux for two years 
now without a problem.  It has a two month old install of Vector Linux 
(essentially Slackware 10.1), which has been running fine.

Last night I plugged in a USB CDRW and burned a CD.  It shut down normally 
when I told it to.  Today when I booted it it got to where it mounts hda1 
(root), and it says it has mounted 32 times without a check, and runs a check 
(this is normal).  

But the check comes back with the following message:

"
i_faddr for inode 276487 (/usr/X11R6/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/xchat.mo) is 
3221160036, should be zero.

/dev/hda1: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
	(i.e., without -a or -p options)

*********************************************************
***An error occurred during the root filesystem check.***
***You will now be given a chance to log into the         ***
***system in single-user mode to fix the problem.        *** 
***                                                                        ***
***if you are using the ext2 filesystem, running            ***
***'e2fsck -v -y <partition>' might help.                        ***
*****************************************************

Once you exit the single user shell, the system will reboot.

Type control-d to proceed with normal maintenance ): "


{Control-d just reboots it to the same point again.  I entered the root 
password, and I get this:}

"
Entering System Maintenance Mode

/dev/console: Read only file system"

{So I do like it suggests:}

"root# e2fsck -v -y hda1
e2fsck 1.35 (28-Feb-2004)
e2fsck: no such file or or directory while trying to open hda1  

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 
filesystem.  If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem 
(and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock is corrupt, and 
you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:  

e2fsck -b 8193 <device>"

{I do that}

"root# e2fsck -b 8193 /dev/hda1
e2fsck 1.35 (28-Feb-2004)
e2fsck Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/hda1

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 
filesystem.  If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem 
(and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock is corrupt, and 
you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:  

e2fsck -b 8193 <device>"

As I remember, there are three partitions on the disk: hda1 is root, hda2 
is /home, and hda3 is swap.  The first two are ext3 file system.  Google has 
not been my friend.  There is not any irreplaceable data on the disk, but I 
sure hate to start all over again configuring everything.

What should I do next?

-- 
Chuck

"I think Microsoft has a PR problem. Largely deservedly, I would say."  Linus 
Torvalds