Ubuntu has corrupted my file !

[Derek Broughton]

James Gray wrote:

> On 14/11/2006, at 7:59 PM, sebastien wrote:
> 
>> ARGH ! ! !
>>
>> Dont understand what has happened.
>> Yesterday I was working under openoffice spreadsheet normally & shut
>> down as usual (as far as I can remember).
>>
>> This morning Ubuntu's boot make a fsck (check forced, boot 30 times
>> without check). And I cannot access to my file ! My so precious
>> file on
>> which I have worked so much !
> 
> AFAIK only non-journalling file systems impose this mandatory fsck
> after a certain number of reboots etc.  Why not use (at least) ext3
> or reiserfs/jfs/xfs???

Ext3 would still use the same settings - so you need to change the fsck
period.  otoh, if you already have ext2 filesystems it's pure lunacy _not_
to add a journal and make them ext3 (as noted below).
 
> Secondly, I doubt *very* much that Ubuntu (Linux) is solely
> responsible for your dilemma - are you sure there's not an underlying
> hardware issue (like a dying hard drive?).  What's the output of
> "badblocks /dev/???" where ???=your hard drive.

fsck didn't make the file unusable.  The file had to be bad _first_.
> 
>> Im disappointed I thought Id never have this kind of problem in such a
>> stable OS. There might be a solution, no ?
> 
> Stop using an ancient file system - backup your data (completely),
> and reformat with filesystem that supports journalling.  If your
> partition is ext2, you can migrate to ext3 without reformatting:
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/ext2toext3.htm

The ancient filesystem is pretty reliable - that's why it's still around. 
But nothing beats a good backup strategy.  If you're not backing up, you
_will_ lose data, no matter what OS or filesystem you use.
-- 
derek