Re: Bad magic number in super-block

[Kent West <westk@acu.edu>]

Kent West wrote:
> 
> When I got home today I discovered that the power went off while I was out. When I turned on the monitor to my Debian potato box, I saw a message that said "bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/hda1" and that the superblock could not be read and that I should try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock. I then tried "e2fsck -b 8193" and got the same message, so I then tried it with 16385 and got the same message.
> 
> I am a total newbie when it comes to working with superblocks; can anyone give or point me to a step-by-step fix (assuming there is one)?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
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Well, DUH! I'm an idiot! It's been so long since I've dual-booted into
Windows, I forgot Windows was on /hda1, so when I read the error
message, my eyes saw "/dev/hda1" (thinking my root system was on the
first drive, first partition) instead of actually seeing that the error
referenced "/dev/hdb1".

I ran e2fsck on /dev/hdb1 and started making progress. A lot of damage,
and it'll take me a few days to recover, but nothing major, and I've
already got most of it under control.

Thanks anyway!