OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical > Storage

JFS partition corrupted -- what is the root cause, and how to fix it?

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Thomas Hellsén:
Hi everybody,
I have a strange and quite annoying problem. I recently upgraded my computer, and now I'm having a problem with JFS partitions on one of the disks getting corrupted. I slightly suspect it happened after using a FAT32-formatted USB stick but I have no proof.
Has anyone had something similar happen, and is there anything I can do to recover the JFS partition?
Details follow.

Hard drives:
Disk 1: 10.2 GB, partitioned into C: (1.3 GB HPFS, eCS 1.2r) and D: (8.9 GB JFS, program/file storage)
Disk 2: 61.5 GB, partitioned into E: (1.26 GB HPFS, eCS 2.1) and F: (60.2 GB JFS, data/file storage)

After making a backup of all partitions except E:, I moved the hard drives to the new computer (see further below for details). I installed eCS 2.1 to the E: partition on a bootable JFS, since that has worked well on the laptop that I now use to write this. I also installed Air-Boot instead of the old IBM bootmanager.
The installation went well, and I started to install some applications. I also tested that I could use a FAT32-formatted 4 GB USB stick that I previously had let LVM designate as U: and had formatted in MS Windows.
But following a restart, the eCS 2.1 partition suddenly failed to boot. CHKDSK from eCS 1.2r couldn't handle the corruption. I thought then that maybe the bootable JFS was incompatible with eCS 1.2r and that it had corrupted the E: partition, or that I had an unlucky sector failure.
Since I hadn't really installed much of anything, I just re-installed eCS 2.1 on E:, this time selecting HPFS instead of bootable JFS. I went on installing new applications and configuring the system, also (last night) copying some data files to and from the 4 GB FAT32-formatted USB stick mentioned above.
Then I restarted the computer to see the effect of some new WPS classes. eCS 2.1 now hung in the JFS check during boot-up. The D: drive checked out, but the check on the F: drive just had stopped. After awhile of no disk activity, I restarted the system with Ctrl-Alt-Del.
Now Air-Boot complained that the there were boot sector problems and would not start. I restarted the system with a DFSee 11.5 CD (the latest I had burned; DFSee 12.1 was on D: but to no use). I used DFSee to make checks on the partitions, then recreated the boot sector on disk 2 and restarted.
Now Air-Boot comes up and I can boot either eCS 1.2r on C: or eCS 2.1 on E. but they both hang when they are about to start checking the JFS F: partition. None will finish booting. They just beep intermittently a few times, then do nothing.
I have used the management console in the eCS 2.1 installation to verify that partitions C: D: and E: are OK, but it can do nothing about the F: partition.

There is my problem (sorry for the long-winded description). So my two questions are:
1) Can I recover the JFS F: partition, or at least its data (I do have a backup but it would be good to know how I could restore the partition if I hadn't). Can I use DFSee, or should i buy JRescuer, or is there another solution?
2) What was the root cause of the problem? I do suspect the USB stick with FAT32, but I have nothing except the circumstantial evidence that it was used in the system before both corruptions.

Any useful information on the subject(s) would be appreciated.

Best regards,
Thomas Hellsén

PS Details on old & new computer setups below.

Previous hardware: PPI-556, a 266 MHz, 384 MiB tower model computer.
IDE controller 0: the hard drives as above.
IDE controller 1 had two CD/DVD drives:
CD 1:  Plextor Plexwriter (CD only)
CD 2:  CD/DVD reader.
This setup had worked reliably for many years, not a glitch really, but it was getting old and the power supply fan had failed.

E: was a maintenance partition that I planned to upgrade to eCS 2.1 and be the main OS after the switch.
I first made a backup of the partitions to a USB-connected HD, then moved the drives to the new hardware:

IBM ThinkCentre A30, 2.8 GHz, 1 GiB tower model computer, bought used.
Connected the hard drives to IDE controller 0, like above.
IDE controller 1:
CD 2:  CD/DVD reader.
CD 1:  Plextor Plexwriter (CD only) from previous hardware.

dbanet:
Tl;dr.


--- Quote from: Thomas Hellsén on September 14, 2014, 11:21:28 am ---There is my problem (sorry for the long-winded description). So my two questions are:
1) Can I recover the JFS F: partition, or at least its data (I do have a backup but it would be good to know how I could restore the partition if I hadn't). Can I use DFSee, or should i buy JRescuer, or is there another solution?

--- End quote ---

No, DFSee doesn't feature recovering files from a corrupted JFS partition.


JRescuer/JUne has worked flawlessly to me once. The shareware version doesn't recover the files, but tells you if it can do that by showing a small piece of a file you choose in a text field that you may copy from. If however it doesn't work straight-forward, there still are some options: read the included readme carefully.

If you think it doesn't cost that much or you simply don't want to pay for some reason, please write to me.


I don't get, have you tried booting to a live-cd and doing a CHKDSK X: /F:3?

eirik:
Hi Boris,

before you despair completely, boot from the CD and go to a command line console where you issue chkdsk x: /f

x is your drive letter and the option /f is a bit stronger than plain chkdsk (I use it when on the rare time that my JFS filesystem does not "come alive").  To date it has always worked for me, but your problems may be of a more serious nature.  Good luck!

Eirik

Doug Bissett:

--- Quote ---it happened after using a FAT32-formatted USB stick but I have no proof.
--- End quote ---

Highly unlikely, but probably not impossible...


--- Quote ---is there anything I can do to recover the JFS partition?
--- End quote ---

Since these disks are old, I need to ask which version of JFS did you use to format them? If it was the old, original, IBM version, and you did not do a format after the update that fixed a problem that required a new format (this was long before eCS), then throw in the update to the Mensys bootable JFS, and you may be seeing the result.

If the suggested CHKDSK does not work, you could try just forcing the drive to clean status, and see if you can recover the files. DFSEE can do that by going to File-> Open single partition-> and select the one that you want. The Mode=FDISK menu should change to Mode=JFS. Do Mode=JFS-> Set FS Mounted - Clean, and close DFSEE. This does NOT mean the the file system is clean, but it may allow you to recover what you need, before it gets into trouble again.

If you can recover the files, I would suggest that you format all of the JFS volumes, before trying to use them again (take the data off first). It may even be a good idea to wipe out what is on the disks, and recreate the whole thing.

If that doesn't work, I will suggest that the disk may be going bad, and you have lost your data. BACKUP is the only real answer, but that won't help, if you don't have one already.

guzzi:
It might be that the different jsf versions on 1.2 and 2.1 cause problems. Like Eirik said, boot from cdrom, preferably the 2.1 and run chkdsk x: /f . If that fixes the corrupted partitions, proceed with copying the 2.1 ifs stuff over to your other bootable partitions.
The files are:
x:\os2\jfschk32.exe
x:\os2\jfsh.msg
x:\os2\dll\ujfs.dll
x:\os2\install\jfs.ifs
x:\os2\install\jfs.msg
This also makes sense because the later jfs version contains a number of fixes.

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