Doing disk checks on mounted OS partition?

Question

I have problems with the main OS partition, but seems that i can't run fsck on mounted partitions?

Is there a way to diagnose mounted partition (i'm having problems lately) and if there isn't what is the best way to check it when not mounted?

Perhaps reviewing https://askubuntu.com/questions/59064/how-to-run-a-checkdisk/59077#59077 would help — Charles Green, May 16 '17 at 19:50
Please see my answer at https://askubuntu.com/questions/885062/root-file-system-requires-manual-fsck/885085#885085 and please remember to vote if it was helpful. — heynnema, May 16 '17 at 20:15
I can suggest checking your Linux file system from initramfs or before your partitions are mounted that way you don't have to load a live cd/usb but using your own installation. I don't know the commands and I don't know if fsck is on there when the OS isn't load, in any case always have a handy bootable removable media with all your tools. — Latino16bits, May 16 '17 at 19:50

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered May 16 '17 at 19:57

3

You can perform a fsck on your root partition during the next reboot by creating a file named forcefsck in your root directory:

sudo touch /forcefsck
reboot

answered May 16 '17 at 19:57

Byte Commander

107,489

Will this work when I have encrypted hdd, home and swap? – user240891 May 17 '17 at 07:09
It should work, I think, but I can't test it here. In the worst case, if that file prevented your installation from booting and failed to trigger a fsck, you could mount the partition from a live system and remove it from there. But as you'd have to do the fsck from a live system anyway if it doesn't work this way, I don't see a real problem with just trying this method. – Byte Commander May 17 '17 at 08:25
will the file go away after running fsck or do I have to remove it manually afterwards? – wotter Feb 20 '19 at 17:47
1

@wotter It will get removed automatically during the file system check. – Byte Commander Feb 20 '19 at 18:07

Ravexina · Answer 2 · 2017-05-16T20:41:37.530

I suggest running it in "Initramfs".

dracut is a low-level tool for generating an "initramfs" images with a lot of capabilities.

Let's install it:

sudo apt install dracut

After installation is finished a new "initramfs" will be generated and GRUB will be updated automatically; It also removes initramfs-tools.

Now reboot the system, hold the Shift to make the GRUB appear (if it won't by itself), press e to edit the default menu. There is a line which starts with linux at the end of that line add rd.break=pre-mount then press Ctrl+x to continue boot process.

it means that drop me into initramfs before mounting the filesystem, Now we are in a sh shell and we can simply run fsck:

$ fsch /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1: clean,  xxx/xxx files,  yyy/yyy blocks

dracut
dracut.cmdline

Doing disk checks on mounted OS partition?

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