# WARNING: / was not properly dismounted (12.2)



## dalpets (Mar 30, 2021)

My system suddenly froze after initially  trying to reboot routinely & properly. I had just before corrected a spelling error in etc/rc.conf & saved the file. I Therefore had to close the system down improperly and  initially I was getting a seemingly continuous stream of what looked like a system attempt to remove PID's from swap. After 5mins or so I formed the impression that what I was seeing was a circular maintenance routine, but one that was going nowhere.  So I closed down improperly again.
The result is that I now have a system that only gets part way through booting with the dismount warning every time.

Is there any way I can attempt to save the system?

I notice that there a number of options to boot but I don't feel confident to use them, lacking any experience, as I do, with this particular problem.

Help would be appreciated. Thank You.

.


----------



## SirDice (Mar 30, 2021)

Assuming this is an UFS system, not ZFS; Boot to single user mode and run fsck(8) from there. When the system boots normally it only does a fairly simple check in the background. Because the system is already running (technically the filesystem is mounted read/write) it can't actually fix filesystem errors. In most cases this isn't really necessary but in your case it sounds like something got corrupted and it needs fixing. The only way to fix a filesystem with fsck(8) is when it's mounted read-only or not mounted at all. In single user mode only the root filesystem is mounted and it is mounted read-only, at that stage fsck(8) can check and actually fix any filesystem issues.


----------



## jb_fvwm2 (Mar 30, 2021)

`fsck_ffs -y /` for example


----------



## dalpets (Mar 31, 2021)

jb_fvwm2 said:


> `fsck_ffs -y /` for example


Thanks but didn't work in single user mode @shell (#) .
Here's the output for your command.

```
1. check block & sizes
2. check path names
3. check connectivity
4. check reference counts
5. check cyl groups

File system is clean.
```
 (I then shutdown with `shutdown -p now` & rebooted)

```
mountroot: waiting for device /dev/ada0s2a
```
After about a minute & then for about 2hrs I got hundreds of PID messages, as follows;

```
pid ( ) (sh), jid 0, vid 0, was killed : out of swap space
```
(I was up to Pid 30,000 or so when I gave up)


----------



## SirDice (Mar 31, 2021)

Ok, that has nothing to do with a dirty or corrupt filesystem. You are starting something that eats up a LOT of memory. So much so you're even running out of swap and the system starts killing processes. Didn't you have the exact same problem before? Or was that someone else? I remember someone having the exact same issue.


----------



## dalpets (Mar 31, 2021)

SirDice said:


> Ok, that has nothing to do with a dirty or corrupt filesystem. You are starting something that eats up a LOT of memory. So much so you're even running out of swap and the system starts killing processes. Didn't you have the exact same problem before? Or was that someone else? I remember someone having the exact same issue.


Wasn't me!
How do I find & rectify the memory problem?


----------



## SirDice (Mar 31, 2021)

I suspect it's something you added to rc.conf that's causing it. Probably causes an endless loop that just eats away the memory.


----------



## dalpets (Mar 31, 2021)

Is


SirDice said:


> I suspect it's something you added to rc.conf that's causing it. Probably causes an endless loop that just eats away the memory.


Is it  not possible to to do something to memory at the single user shell so that I can at least get into the OS to look at that file, or am I in line for reinstalling the total OS?


----------



## SirDice (Mar 31, 2021)

dalpets said:


> Is it not possible to to do something to memory at the single user shell so that I can at least get into the OS to look at that file.


Boot to single user mode. Then:

```
fsck -y
mount -a
swapon -a
```
Then you can edit /etc/rc.conf. 



dalpets said:


> Or am I in line for removing the total OS?


Why is this always the first thing that comes up? No, this isn't windows, you don't need to reinstall the entire OS because you made a mistake.


----------



## dalpets (Apr 1, 2021)

SirDice said:


> Boot to single user mode. Then:
> 
> ```
> fsck -y
> ...


Thanks muchly. That did the trick.
I'm relieved that I don't have to reinstall
BTW: Is it possible to rescue a Windows system to the same degree as Unix, without the need for a reinstall.


----------



## SirDice (Apr 1, 2021)

dalpets said:


> Is it possible to rescue a Windows system to the same degree as Unix, without the need for a reinstall.


A bit off-topic for here but sure, I've done some really bad things to Windows and a lot of times I've been able to recover from those without having to reinstall. But it requires some intimate knowledge of Windows, just like you need a bit of intimate knowledge of UNIX. If you don't know how things work then the easiest way to solve it is to reinstall. But if you do know how things work you can often just repair the fault and get things back to work again.


----------



## im (Apr 1, 2021)

dalpets said:


> BTW: Is it possible to rescue a Windows system to the same degree as Unix, without the need for a reinstall.


Yes, sometimes. It depends on kind of error and your knowledges and time limit for that.

For the most Windows versions you can check filesystems in safe mode.
You can boot from Live-Windows or Windows-Install-CD to check filesystems.
You can rollback some updates and rollback the systemstate.
You can try to analyze windows crash dumps to locate a problem source.
Microsoft has perfect tool like MS DART (_Microsoft_ Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset).

With DART you can do something with crashed system
edit registry, enable/disable services, enable/disable drivers and pre-boot drivers, rollback some updates and recovery points.
If you have a fresh correct backups with systemstate - you can recover or renovate any windows.
So it is possible to recover even windows, but often it takes too much time.
But reinstall still be most popular way for windows-recovery since windows-95 time


----------



## dalpets (Apr 1, 2021)

im said:


> So it is possible to recover even windows, but often it takes too much time.
> But reinstall still be most popular way for windows-recovery since windows-95 time


It goes without saying that if you are in a business, time & bottom line are of the essence. So if backup protocols have been properly followed a Windows reinstall might often be the preference, possibly with redundant hardware, built for the purpose.


----------

