[ydl-gen] Serious problem, please help

[Derick Centeno]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Hi Warren:

Sorry to hear that this happened to you after Thanksgiving.  Being a bit of a
incessant tinkerer myself, I understand the drive to pursue one's own
process of trial and error.  Sometimes one moves into a new direction sometimes
one gets into the jam you're reporting.

I found a rather detailed explanation for you which could address your problem
by restoring the superblock by resorting or recalling the backup of the
superblock which Linux creates for itself.  Before I refer you to the article
recall that the superblock refers to data structures containing information
regarding the hard drive partition which Linux resides on; ext2 or ext3 refers
to the filetype that same data is written in.  Simply stated, the superblock
always needs to be present regardless of the filetype because the superblock
comprises everything describing where your data is within a hard drive
partition.  When an application, process or anything else needs information
regarding information regarding a particular file (and remember everything in
Unix/Linux is a file) the fastest way to determine that information is to query
the superblock.  

The article also discusses a programmer's preference regarding a "production
system" which I'll attempt to elaborate upon briefly.  A "production system"
can be considered any Unix/Linux environment in which programming projects
exist.  Even if the only programs you write are explorations into producing
"Hello World", within any computer language available in Linux, these projects
and efforts are yours and require a solidly tested kernel and associated
components for compilers, etc.  The article advises against the tendency
amongst many consumers/users to acquire the latest version of any program or
project or kernel, because getting the latest does not mean that the latest
version is free of bugs.  Instead acquiring the latest version usually means
that the bugs are hidden because they've not been thoroughly tested by a
sufficiently large body of persons.  This is also why the tendency amongst many
is to remain within "stable" releases of a product.

Also every Unix/Linux is likewise identified as stable, experimental or
leading/bleeding edge. Staying "stable" is not as exciting as "the latest"
stuff, but there are certainly a lot less headaches.  

Here's the article discussing the superblock and a possible means of recovery.
If this doesn't work, you may be looking at a complete reinstallation.  Of
course, hopefully after you read the article you may just choose to stay within
YDL 5.0.2 just as TSS released it.

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/surviving-a-linux-filesystem-failures.html

In the meantime, just in case you were interested in a bit more background
regarding the Unix File System (UFS) I believed the brief discussion located
in Wikipedia here could be useful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_File_System

Good Luck...

On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 23:58:57 -0800
Warren Nagourney <warren at phys.washington.edu> wrote:

> I have been playing around with a number of kernels and other things  
> on my PS3 and managed to make the thing unbootable. It happened when  
> I tried an unusable video setting in my kboot.conf (after everything  
> was working fine) and the system hung up. In my desperation I might  
> have run one of the "rescue" modes from kboot. When I try ydltext it  
> now complains that the superblock is missing, but it assumes that I  
> have an ext2 filesystem (isn't it ext3 ?) and puts me in  
> "maintainance mode". All I would like to do is to be able to restore  
> my kboot.conf video setting and boot normally. Is there a way of  
> accessing the file system using the memory stick which I originally  
> used when installing the OS? By the way, during all of the above, I  
> was never able to access the system using ssh - I guess it fails  
> before enabling the network. Any help much appreciated. Thanks.
> 
> Warren Nagourney
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> yellowdog-general mailing list
> yellowdog-general at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
> http://lists.terrasoftsolutions.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general
> HINT: to Google archives, try  '<keywords> site:terrasoftsolutions.com'


==========

 "If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often
think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of
music. ... I get most joy in life out of music."  

"What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester
Viereck," for the October 26, 1929 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.4 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFHSIj4NEKmdDLMbSsRAqoaAKCEWXFvblmLnVMv9IIXKQ4DUr5w3ACeNnk3
L87ULqfEgOafXMcEl9Hhb+g=
=lyNZ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----