Solaris Common Messages and Troubleshooting Guide

/dev/rdsk/string: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.

Cause

During a boot, the /etc/rcS script runs the fsck(1M) command to check the integrity of file systems marked "fsck" in /etc/vfstab. If fsck(1M) cannot repair a file system automatically, it interrupts the boot procedure and produces this message. When fsck(1M) gets into this state, it cannot repair a file system without losing one or more files, so it wants to defer this responsibility to you, the administrator. Data corruption has probably already occurred.

Action

First run fsck -n on the file system, to see how many and what type of problems exist. Then run fsck(1M) again to repair the file system. If you have a recent backup of the file system, you can generally answer "y" to all the fsck(1M) questions. It is a good idea to keep a record of all problematic files and inode numbers for later reference. To run fsck(1M) yourself, specify options as recommended by the boot script. For example:


# fsck /dev/rdsk/c0t4d0s0
Usually the files lost during fsck(1M) repair are those that were created just before a crash or power outage, and they cannot be recovered. If you lose important files, you can recover them from backup tapes.

If you do not have a backup, ask an expert to run fsck(1M) for you.

See Also

For more information on file checking, see the section on checking file system integrity in the System Administration Guide, Volume 1.