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My motd persistently has:

*** /dev/sdb1 will be checked for errors at next reboot ***

The problem is that I don't have /dev/sdb1 on my system.

I only have /dev/sdb2 (mouted as /) and /dev/sda1 which mounts to /media/backup. I delete that line from /etc/motd, but it reappears after reboot. Here's my df output:

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb2        73G  3.7G   66G   6% /
udev            490M  4.0K  490M   1% /dev
tmpfs           200M  760K  199M   1% /run
none            5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none            498M     0  498M   0% /run/shm
/dev/sda1       1.9T  429G  1.4T  25% /media/backup

Update

Here is the output of sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0003dfc2

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1              63  3907024064  1953512001   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders, total 156301488 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00049068

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1       152301568   156301311     1999872   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb2   *        2048   152301567    76149760   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

I guess /dev/sdb1 is my swap space.

kmm
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  • Please add the output of sudo fdisk -l to your question. – Takkat May 24 '12 at 06:48
  • http://askubuntu.com/questions/163184/repeated-disk-will-be-checked-messages-when-logging-into-cli-server has an answer that seems to work. Did for me at least. – beruic Feb 14 '13 at 00:39

3 Answers3

5

It does look like it might be a swap problem. Can you manually fsck the drives from single-user mode (e.g., by booting into recovery mode)?

You can do a sudo mv /var/run/motd /var/run/motd.old to force a clear of the current /etc/motd file.

Also, can you add output of your from cat /etc/fstab ?

For swap operations, see these answers:

delete old swap partition

How to delete a second swap partition safely?

A nice graphical swap repair guide using gparted is here.

Community
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belacqua
  • 23,120
5

Looking for help on the same issue, and the search that brought me here.

I came across this forum discussion Ubuntu Forums which posed the following command as solution:

sudo touch /forcefsck

I tried it and the message was cleared on next reboot. Some have commented that this does not always work, but I hope it helps you too.

jokerdino
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Andre
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1

From: Persistent "disk will be checked..." in the message of the day (motd) even after reboot

This is caused by a stuck file. The timestamp on /var/lib/update-notifier/fsck-at-reboot is in the future, causing it never to be regenerated.

To fix the problem, remove that file and then reboot.

You can fix it without rebooting by forcing the motd file to be regenerated after removing the stuck file.

Here is the command to remove the stuck file and regenerate it through the update-motd system:

sudo bash -c 'rm /var/lib/update-notifier/fsck-at-reboot && for file in /etc/update-motd.d/*; do $file; done > /var/run/motd' && cat /etc/motd

Or alternately, with run-parts instead of the for loop:

sudo bash -c 'rm /var/lib/update-notifier/fsck-at-reboot && run-parts /etc/update-motd.d | tee /var/run/motd'
Community
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Stephen Ostermiller
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