Managing Systems and Workgroups: A Guide for HP-UX System Administrators
Administering a System: Managing Disks and Files
Managing File Systems
Chapter 6614
Never take a system offline by merely shutting its power off or by
disconnecting it.
Diagnosing a Corrupt File System
The following are symptomatic of a corrupt file system:
• A file contains incorrect data (garbage).
• A file has been truncated or has missing data.
• Files disappear or change locations unexpectedly.
• Error messages appear on a user’s terminal, the system console, or in
the system log.
• You are unable to change directories or list files.
• The system fails to reboot, possibly as a result of one or more errors
reported by the /sbin/bcheckrc script during bootup.
If you or other users cannot readily identify causes for the difficulties,
check the file system for inconsistencies using fsck.
Locating and Correcting Corruption Using fsck
• “Checking an HFS File System” on page 615
• “Checking a JFS File System” on page 618
• “Differences between HFS and JFS File Checking” on page 618
fsck, the file system checker, is the primary HP-UX tool for finding and
correcting file system inconsistencies. fsck examines the HFS or JFS file
system listed in /etc/fstab.
If the system fails, reboot the system and run fsck (1M). Additionally, if
you suspect that a file system is corrupt, or to do periodic preventive
maintenance, you should also check the file system.
Refer to fsck (1M), fsck_hfs (1M), and fsck_vxfs (1M) for more
information.