A root file system in Linux operating system contains all necessary information about the files required at the time of booting the system. This file system is saved on a partition where the root directory is located. Corruption in root file system can be due to improper system shutdown, operating system malfunction, virus infection, and human errors. In most cases of root file system corruption, the system becomes unbootable, resulting in inaccessibility of hard drive data. To get past root file system corruption, a user needs to repair it by running FSCK command manually. However, if the corruption persists even after running FSCK command, then the user needs to opt for a third-party Linux Data Recovery application.

To explain the above case, consider a practical scenario where you encounter the underneath error message while booting your Linux system:

“*Checking root file system... /contains a file system with errors, check forced /: Duplicate or bad block in use! /: Multiply-claimed block(s) in inode 8: 1024 /: Multiply-claimed block(s) in inode 81297: 1024 /: (There are 1 inodes containing multiply-claimed blocks.) ?: File <The journal inode> (inode #8, mod time Mon Dec 26 21:40:14 2005) has 1 multiply-claimed block(s), shared with 1 file(s): /: /bin/zless (inode #81297, mod time Fri Jul 8 22:19:49 2005) /: /: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY (i.e., witjout -a or -p options)

• fsck failed. Please repair manually and reboot”

The error message makes the system unbootable and the hard drive data inaccessible.

Cause:

As stated in the error message, the root file system is corrupted or damaged.

Resolution:

To get rid of the above root file system error message, you will need to follow the below steps:

Run FSCK command manually. If the command fails, restore the data from an up-to-date backup. If no backup available, then format the hard drive and reinstall the operating system. To recover formatted files post re-installation, use an effective Linux Recovery application.

A Linux Recovery tool uses effective recovery techniques to recover lost data from a formatted Linux volume. Such tools provide safe restoration of formatted data at user-specified destination. Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is a secure Linux Data Recovery tool to recover all files and folders post formatting of Linux volume. Compatible with almost all Linux distributions, the recovery tool supports Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, and FAT file systems.