ext2 errors - help!

[Antipop]

I've got an extra 13GB drive in the server for my home network serving off MP3 files via Samba. The drive is ext2 formatted. I haven't hard booted the server (ie. just turning off the power) and the electricity hasn't gone out, but it seems the FS has been corrupted. I've been having lots of problems with this particular box (I got it through a used computer store and apparently something is wrong with the hardware). I can mount the drive and go through the directories through a SSH connection, but if I try to access the files through Samba or FTP I can't get to them. I get lots of errors in my syslog like this:

Aug 4 22:40:58 chaos kernel: EXT2-fs error (device ide1(22,1)): ext2_check_blocks_bitmap: Wrong free blocks count in super block, stored = 1247456, counted = 1218312
Aug 4 22:41:09 chaos kernel: EXT2-fs error (device ide1(22,1)): read_inode_bitmap: Cannot read inode bitmap - block_group = 71, inode_bitmap = 2326529
Aug 4 22:42:15 chaos kernel: EXT2-fs error (device ide1(22,1)): ext2_check_inodes_bitmap: Wrong free inodes count in super block, stored = 1659116, counted = 1642866
Aug 4 22:48:31 chaos kernel: EXT2-fs error (device ide1(22,1)): ext2_readdir: directory #1612514 contains a hole at offset 4096


I tried running e2fsck on the partition and I get lots of errors like this:

Error reading block 1441820 (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read) while doing inode scan. Ignore error<y>?

Is my drive completely lost or is there something I can do that may salvage it? I'd really not like to lose 9GB of MP3s.

[Malakin]

Always backup anything you don't want to lose. Hard drive failure is very common. I've got a stack of like 40 cdr's with my mp3's backed up on them, it was a hassle to do it but I sleep better at night :)

Have you tried putting the drive in a different computer to see if you can read it any better?

[posterboy]

Yup, try another puter, but don't leap to, well, it's the hard drive. It certainly may be, but I have seen this same symptom from flaky memory, that never gave any other symptom at first, except a screwy ext2 file system. Later, the owner, trying to fix the FS, it began bizarre behavior, and new mem sticks fixed it. Unfortunately, we were never able to get the FS back, but he re-installed, and ran for years after that without issues. It's not ALLways the drive at fault. Ray

[Antipop]

Yeah, I really think I got some bad RAM. I've had nothing but unexplainable problems with this box since I've gotten. I'll try switching it to another box and seeing if I can get to it. Are there any programs I can run to check my RAM before I go buy some new sticks?