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List:       debian-user
Subject:    Re: /var partition damaged
From:       "Karsten M. Self" <kmself () ix ! netcom ! com>
Date:       2001-05-15 0:53:34
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on Mon, May 14, 2001 at 04:17:47PM +0200, Christoph Groth (cgroth@gmx.net) wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> While booting yesterday my potato system once again the the mount
> count was exceeded and I realized that there are serious problems with
> my /var partition: After booting in single user mode e2fsck had to
> delete a lot of files (lost+found contains 42M of stuff!).
> 
> Luckily, my system works to some extent but some important files are
> missing (for example /var/lib/locate/ is gone, so locate doesn't work)
> or X has problems initing some keymaps so that backspace works as
> delete.  More seriously, dpkg has problems, too.  Probably there are
> even more things that don't work properly.
> 
> I have an IBM DTLA307030 hard drive and maybe it's malfunctioning in
> some way, I'll have to fetch some testing software from IBM.
> 
> Now to the real question:
> What should I do now in order to repair my system?  Is there some way
> to recreate the files in /var without reinstalling?  Unfortunately I
> don't have /var backups...
> 
> I have put a lot of work into configuring my system.  Probably I could
> delete the /usr and / partitions and after installing the packages
> I had previously from scratch copy the old configuration to /etc?
> Would this work?  Is there a way to output a list of installed
> packages when `dpkg --get-selections' doesn't work?
> 
> Any help is greatly appreciated,

/var is divided into system state and package-managed data.  What goes
where is somewhat tricky.  I tend to keep:

    /var/backups
    /var/cache/apt
    /var/lib
    /var/log
    /var/www
    
...though YMMV.

You should make and keep current updates on your filesystems.  This may
not help you recover what you've lost at this point, but may save future
problems.

For general information, including picks of what I grab out of /var for
backups, look at 

  http://kmself.home.netcom.com/Linux/FAQs/backups.html

It's also sometimes possible to work out what's what in lost+found.

I'd replace the disk and purchase a backup system.  Dodgy storeage ain't
worth the trouble.

Cheers.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com>    http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
 What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?       There is no K5 cabal
  http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/         http://www.kuro5hin.org

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