Re: Avoid ext2/FAT panic on media error ?

Erik Corry (erik@arbat.com)
Sun, 3 Aug 1997 13:28:52 +0200 (MET DST)


Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote:
> From: Jochen Karrer <karrer@wpfd25.physik.uni-wuerzburg.de>
> Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 12:26:30 +0200 (MET DST)
>
> ext2 (and FAT) filesystem is still totally unusuable
> for removeable media like ZIP-disks because
> a kernel panic will occur when using
> a defective disk [...]
>
> Yes, this is a known problem, which in all honesty has been left unfixed
> for too long. Unfortunately everyone who's known about it has been too
> busy with other things. :-(

Did you miss Stephen Tweedie's ext2 robustifying patch? It
is on LinuxHQ somewhere. Something similar is probably
required for FAT. Anyone who wants to do this can make use
of the debugging tools Stephen wrote (ie. the
error-producing ram disk).

Really, this patch is a candidate for 2.0.31 or .32 since as
you imply, it's basically a bug. People should be testing it.
I haven't tried it myself yet :-).

-- 
Erik Corry erik@arbat.com http://inet.uni-c.dk/~ehcorry/