From: probreak@kitty.ksu.ksu.edu (James Michael Chacon) Subject: Re: Extended FS -> "magic match failed" Date: 8 Nov 1992 00:10:53 -0600
chans@cs.curtin.edu.au (Sean Chan) writes:
>I installed Linux on my hard drive as Linux Extended FS (Partition ID
>83), with the SLS distribution. After the installation was complete, I
>rebooted...and it came up with "magic match failed". Other than that
>statement, Linux works fine. I can login, etc.
>Oh, yes, when I do a fsck /dev/hda2 it comes up with a "bad magic number
>in super-block". What does this mean?? Can anyone shed some light here??
>Sean
The magic match failure is caused by the way the kernel checks the root
device on boot time. First it checks for a minix file system, and failing
that it prints the magic match failure. Then it checks for an extfs.
Finding that, it should then boot fine. I presume that if you mounted
a dos fs a your root device it would just tell you magic match failed twice.
Don't run fsck on your extfs partition. That program is only for minix
partitions. Get the extfs stuff from tsx-11.mit.edu in the
pub/linux/ALPHA/extfs dir.
James