Making ReiserFS Skip fsck

[APwrs]

I'm currently using Mandriva 2006. When I use the filesystem ReiserFS, I notice something strange.

When the computer is starting up and it gets to the point where it mounts the filesystem, the boot process pauses and my hard drive makes a wooshing noise, as though the entire drive is being scanned quickly by fsck. Is there any way to get it to stop doing this? Thanks :).

[je_fro]

yeah, in man fstab...

The sixth field, (fs_passno), is used by the fsck(8) program to determine the order in which filesystem
checks are done at reboot time. The root filesystem should be specified with a fs_passno of 1, and
other filesystems should have a fs_passno of 2. Filesystems within a drive will be checked sequen-
tially, but filesystems on different drives will be checked at the same time to utilize parallelism
available in the hardware. If the sixth field is not present or zero, a value of zero is returned and
fsck will assume that the filesystem does not need to be checked.

find the line corresponding to
/dev/hdb2 /home/je_fro/media/music reiserfs auto,rw,users 0 2

in your /etc/fstab file and change the last field to a 0

[APwrs]

Thanks for the information. However, it didn't work. I think I know why, but I'm not sure what I can do about it.

While watching the boot process, I see that while the boot is still in the kernel section, that's when it detects what type of filesystem I have on my root partition and that's when it pauses and causes my hard drive to make that wooshing noise. It seems that nothing I do in fstab effects it. Any ideas about this? Thanks again.

[retsaw]

My hard drive make a sound (that maybe could be described as a whooshing noise) that happens it is mounted. It might be that you get the same thing, in which case there won't be anything you can do. I've never considered it a problem.

[serz]

But it bypassed the filesystem check, right? I wonder, maybe this is problem that has more to do with your hard drive.

[APwrs]

Yes, it passes the filesystem check. And it only does this with ReiserFS, not any other filesystem. When in the kernel section of the boot, the initrd section I suppose, it lists a few things like:

mounting /proc
creating files

And then after a few lines it says:

mounting /dev/root as reiserfs with flags notail

It doesn't matter how I adjust the flags in fstab, it always says this. After it says that, it pauses and makes the wooshing noise I described, and then it lists the various properties of the filesystem, such as the block size etc. Then the boot continues normally.

[APwrs]

I've been messing around with various kernel parameters, such as:

rootfstype=reiserfs rootflags=notail,noatime,nolog ro

But I must be missing something, because it always asks me to supply a proper "root=" parameter, and then it has a kernel panick. Even when I add in a root= parameter, such as root=/dev/root, or root=/dev/hdc1 (my root partition) it still has a kernel panic and asks for a proper "root=" parameter.

[APwrs]

It looks like the various "root" options are probably in relation to the filesystem of the ramdisk from the initrd, and not the actual filesystem of the root partition. So basically, I'm back where I started :).

[Sepero]

Here's my root partition in my /boot/grub/menu.lst:
title Debian 2.6.9-1-k7 hda2
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-1-k7 root=/dev/hda2
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.9-1-k7

[voidinit]

I'm currently using Mandriva 2006. When I use the filesystem ReiserFS, I notice something strange.

When the computer is starting up and it gets to the point where it mounts the filesystem, the boot process pauses and my hard drive makes a wooshing noise, as though the entire drive is being scanned quickly by fsck. Is there any way to get it to stop doing this? Thanks :).


I don't think it's fsck at all. fsck would give you some sort of output, and the fsck binary isn't even accessible until after / is mounted. I think it's hardware. I have the same problem with one of my disks and I haven't been able to do anything about it. I have several types of drives in my box, and the drive that gives me the most trouble is a 120GB Western Digital IDE drive. Thanks god it's not my / drive. It's the drive that holds my video and music. When ever I try to access anything on this drive there is a pause....then a swoosh, click, click, then I can access the drive. If I don't access the drive for another 15 - 20 minutes, the process is repeated when I try to access it again. I wonder if it's some sort of power management feature on the drive or something.