read-only file system sporratic

[Matt Patterson]

I dont know if this applies to the root partition, but there is an 
option in the mount command which simply remounts read/write. As for 
scheduling an fsck check during boot, I dont know how, but thats what 
you would want since it wont let you check while you are in the system. 
If you figure it out, please post it so I can add it to my book of tricks.

Matt



Jim Pelton wrote:

> Matt Patterson wrote:
>
>> I get this occasionally on my usb external disks. You should unmount 
>> the disk:
>>
>> sudo umount /dev/sdb1
>>
>> Then you should run fsck on it:
>>
>> sudo fsck /dev/sdb1
>>
>> or for vfat drives (windows):
>>
>> sudo dosfsck /dev/sdb1 -a
>>
>> You might have to specify some more options to make them fix the disk 
>> problems automatically. The problem is caused by errors in the file 
>> system, so linux remounts it read only.
>>
>> Then remount the drive:
>>
>> sudo mount /dev/sdb1 ???
>>
>> That should solve your problem and without rebooting. If you really 
>> dont want to wait for the fsck to run you can simply unmount and 
>> remount it, which will make it read/write again, but that is probably 
>> a bad idea.
>>
>> Matt
>>
>>
>>
>> Jim Pelton wrote:
>>
>>> Hello all! Here's an interesting one for ya. Twice now I have been 
>>> working away fine, music playing, network humming along...things are 
>>> great.
>>>
>>> Then I will try to start firefox, emacs, or send an email with 
>>> Thunderbird, save document with OOWriter, do anything that writes to 
>>> the disk /dev/hdb (/dev/hdb1 to be exact with the partition number) 
>>> and I get an error message. If the program is such that it out puts 
>>> the error to an XTerm it usualy reads something to the tune of "IO 
>>> Error could not write to disk: read-only file system." The problem 
>>> persists until I force a reboot.
>>>
>>> The reboot must be forced by shutting down the system because during 
>>> the shutdown the machine freezes with error after error of "EXT3-fs 
>>> ... ... read-only file system" or something of that nature. Now get 
>>> this, when I start the computer up next time, it does it's BIOS 
>>> system start-up stuff, then imideatly reports that "Hard Drive 1 is 
>>> opporating outside of normal parameters...replace the drive...yada 
>>> yada."
>>>
>>> This happened this morning after it had been working fine for two or 
>>> three days following some fixes done by fsck. It sounded like 
>>> another fan started up, the HD started grinding, then the fan noise 
>>> stopped and the errors came. I rebooted (by forcing a shutdown) and 
>>> the computer came up fine this time, no erros at bootup, and no 
>>> problems for several hours since.
>>>
>>> Any suggestions? Hardware or software problem? Are there any tests I 
>>> could run?
>>>
>>> Oh /dev/hdb is the startup disk with usr directories and /boot. 
>>> "touch testfile" does not work, even as root, however if I connect 
>>> to the mount point of /dev/hda1 I can read/write just fine.
>>>
>>> Thanks for the help!
>>>
>>> Jim
>>>
>>
>>
> Matt, thanks for you help, but because this is the disk which contains 
> the OS I can not unmount it like that. I think I would have to boot 
> off of a separate drive to unmount this disk and repair it...or 
> perhaps repair it at boot time. Can I do that with safe mode or 
> something? Your post does alleviate my worries that I had a hardware 
> problem however. Though I do kind of want a new computer, and that 
> would have been a good excuse!
>
>
> Jim
>