On Tue, 15 Aug 2006 mark@mark.mielke.cc wrote:
>>> This is also wrong. fsck is needed because the file system is broken.
>> nope, the file system *may* be broken. the dirty flag simply indicates
>> that the filesystem needs to be checked to find out whether or not it is
>> broken.
>
> Ah, but if we knew it wasn't broken, then fsck wouldn't be needed, now
> would it? So we assume that it is broken. A little bit of a game, but
> it is important to me. If I assumed the file system was not broken, I
> wouldn't run fsck. I run fsck, because I assume it may be broken. If
> broken, it indicates potential corruption.
note tha the ext3, reiserfs, jfs, and xfs developers (at least) consider
fsck nessasary even for journaling fileysstems. they just let you get away
without it being mandatory after a unclean shutdown.
David Lang