Checking disks and filesystems for errors
Data is the most important thing in any computer system. Naturally, it is important to monitor the consistency of data stored on physical media.
Getting ready
We will use the standard tool, fsck
to check for errors in the filesystems. This command should be preinstalled on all modern distros. If not, use your package manager to install it.
How to do it...
Let us see how to use fsck
with its various options to check filesystems for errors, and optionally fix them.
To check for errors on a partition or filesystem, just pass its path to
fsck
:# fsck /dev/sdb3 fsck from util-linux 2.20.1 e2fsck 1.42.5 (29-Jul-2012) HDD2 has been mounted 26 times without being checked, check forced. Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes Pass 2: Checking directory structure Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity Pass 4: Checking reference counts Pass 5: Checking group summary information HDD2: 75540/16138240 files (0.7% non-contiguous), 48756390/64529088 blocks
To check...