How to fsck if the system always reports "/dev/sda1 is mounted" - Ubuntu 23.10

Question

So my question is exactly as the title suggests...

I want to verify no system errors as Ubuntu keeps falling over / blank screen during boot.

Using the Disks utility the system reports that fsck cannot be run due to the disk already being mounted. I get the same after shift-booting ans selecting "generic kernel - recovery" option. After hitting ctrl+d and getting the graphical recovery console, selecting fsck reports disk needs to be in read/write mode to carry on. Allowing to system to do this throws me back to the GUI. Selecting fsck again reports the disk needs to be in read-only mode... i seem to be stuck in a loop here...

Any input useful, many thanks

Did you boot to the grub menu and select to boot into recovery mode? — rusty, Feb 03 '24 at 16:53
Does this answer your question? Can I run fsck or e2fsck when Linux file system is mounted? — Daniel T, Feb 04 '24 at 02:44
Excerpt: With BIOS, quickly press and hold the Shift key, which will bring up the GNU GRUB menu. (If you see the Ubuntu logo, you've missed the point where you can enter the GRUB menu.) With UEFI press (perhaps several times) the Escape key to get grub menu. — rusty, Feb 06 '24 at 17:37
After you boot to recovery mode, from recovery menu, select fsck. That should work. — rusty, Feb 06 '24 at 17:45

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Feb 03 '24 at 18:41

1

In a terminal window type: sudo touch /forcefsck and reboot the system.

This will force fsck to check everything during the next system boot before it mounts any volumes.

sudo shutdown -r now will cause an orderly shutdown and reboot.

edited Feb 03 '24 at 18:41

waltinator

36,399

answered Feb 03 '24 at 17:13

Stormlord

6,317

Thank you, i will give this a go and report back. Appreciate you taking the time to suggest – Paul Eden Feb 06 '24 at 17:08

How to fsck if the system always reports "/dev/sda1 is mounted" - Ubuntu 23.10

1 Answers1