Recover Corrupt /dev

[Rick Stevens]

Algis Zyle wrote:
> Checked that, Every other partition is at 50% or less filled...which is
> what makes this so bizarre...and why it sounds like a "configuration"
> file of sorts got corrupted....and Everything points to /dev items (even
> the X error message says  "can't open /dev/xxxx"...for example in Rescue
> mode....I made a back up with the default rescue /dev/st0 device....For
> laughs I then tried to do a cpio using the Old Device
> (/mnt/sysimage/dev/st0)....And it Worked !!!

Please bottom post in the future.

If /dev is truly corrupted, you're in trouble.  It would help a lot if
you can be more specific about which devices aren't working or the ones
that X is complaining about ("/dev/xxxx" doesn't cut it).

If you have an adequate backup, you can try to reinstall the "dev" RPM
which can be found on the first CD of your distribution.  You'll need
to "rpm -Uvh --force" to get it to install.  I won't guarantee success,
but you're kinda dead anyway.

If it works, rename the host to "frankenstein", as you've brought it
back from the dead.  ;-)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com
> [mailto:redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of jludwig
> Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 11:22 AM
> To: Getting started with Red Hat Linux
> Subject: Re: Recover Corrupt /dev
> 
> On Wed, 2004-05-05 at 10:31, Algis Zyle wrote:
> 
>>Redhat Admin Newbie, Any help would be appreciated: We're Running
>>Redhat 9
>>
>> 
>>
>>1)       A colleague of mine intended on doing a backup and by
>>accident re-directed the output to /dev/rt0 (a file) instead of
>>st0..eventually people complained they couldn't print, etc..It turns
>>out that it filled up the file system...before we found this out, we
>>had rebooted and did a fschk (not knowing the real problem
>>yet).Anyway,eventually deleted the rt0 file..but. Xwindows wouldn't
>>come up (Couldn't open the /dev/ device)., Networking stopped
>>working.I couldn't access the tape drive or cdrom anymore (/dev/st0,
>>/dev/hdc) even though they existed in the dev directory...I went into
>>rescue mode and at least made a backup etc..How can I fix the /dev
>>directory and/or anything else that may have went south by the file
>>system getting full without re-installing Redhat.(Again, I'm not a
>>hard core Redhat Admin)..
> 
> snip
> If this is a server, I suspect that you probably have separate
> partitions for /var /usr /home etc. You should check, especially
> /var/spool, to see if they are also filled with garbage files. If you
> have a /var partition that is filled X and many other programs and such
> will not work.


-- 
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-  Jimmie crack corn and I don't care...what kind of lousy attitude  -
-                 is THAT to have, huh?   -- Dennis Miller           -
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