@sdetweil Wow, that was a bit to take in but makes sense (I think).

So if I unmount it how do I get the information off it?
what are the steps here?

@sdetweil so do I run e2fsck -f -v /dev/sda1 or e2fsck -f -v /dev/sda2
or does it not matter?

I’m struggling here to the bigger picture so can’t see the logic of the steps.

@sdetweil so I’ve run sudo umount /dev/sda1 and the same for sda2 and both folders have disappeared off the home screen.

which e2fsck do I run if i had to unmount 2 drives?

so should i also run sudo umount /dev/sda2 before running sudo e2fsck -f -v /dev/sda2?

@sdetweil I’m a little confused (I’d imagine thats pretty clear at this point).

i run sudo fdisk -1
and get
Disk /dev/ram0 through to Disk /dev/ram15
the list then has
Disk/dev/mmcblk0: 7.4GiB (my thinking is this is the current/new sd card)

Device
/dev/mmcblk0p1
/dev/mmcblk0p2

Disk /dev/sda:59.69 GiB (I again assume this is the old SD with my original MM setup)

Device
/dev/sda1
/dev/sda/2

end of the list.

does any of that make sense/ is any of it what I’m looking for? I’ve obviously taken out several lines under each of those headers just for space and time typing.

@sdetweil on the home screen I have 2 drive icons under the wastebasket.
one is boot
the other is rootfs

i then have the option to eject these in the file manager

@sdetweil I run sudo umount…
and get
umount:… not mounted,

then run
sudo e2fsck -f -v /dev/sda
and get
e2fsck 1.46.2 (28-feb-2021)
/dev/sda is in use
efsck: connot continue, aborting.

@sdetweil when i run e2fsck…
I get
e2fsck: permission denied while trying to open /dev/sda
you must have r/w access to the filesystem or be root.

so I run the command sudo umount /dev/sda
and get
umount: /dev/sda: not mounted.

so should now go,
e2fsck -f -v /dev/sda
not the original
e2fsck -f -v mmcblk0p2

?

@sdetweil sorry to be dense how do I know what I’m unmounting?
am I unmounting /dev/mmcblk0p1?? it says thats mounted on /boot.

edit to add,
after re running sudo fdisk -l it would appear the old memory card (with my previous MM setup on) is on Disk /dev/sda

thats classed as Disk Model: storage device (as it’s mounted in the usb drive atm) does this seem correct? is this the one which needs unmounting?

@mumblebaj It would be way easier if I could recover the previous setup but I’m starting to feel like it might be worth starting the entire MM install again, but for me that’s the least interesting parts of Pi builds.

The files are still available on the old SD card so the card itself isn’t completely kaput.

edit to add I ran the systemctl stop udev command.
put in the password of the MM to allow this.
re ran sudo e2fsck -f -v /dev/mmcblk0p2
and get the same e2fcsk: cannot continue, aborting error.

@mumblebaj when I run that in terminal I get,
e2fsck 1.46.2 (28-Feb-2021)
/dev/mmcblk0p2 is mounted.
e2fsck: cannot continue, aborting.

Any thoughts, is that image/setup a goner?

@sdetweil so I ran e2fsck -f -v /dev/mmcblk0p2

got a warning about SEVERE filesystem damage.

went yes and got ]e2fsck : permission denied while trying to open /dev/mmcblk0p2
you must have r/w access to the filesystem or be root.

How do I get around this?

@mumblebaj cool. Do you have any idea why the initial SD card would be failing to launch when the pi is turned on?
as mentioned above it’s a good quality SD card so am I daft to consider (providing I can recover a copy of my old setup) copying it back onto to the original SD card, am I asking for trouble in the future?

@mumblebaj that’s worked.
I’m now presented with
/dev/mmcblk0p1
/dev/mmcblk0p2

so follow @sdetweil step above and go with the second option?

I get the same issue. Sudo fdisk -i returns
fdisk: invalid option - - ‘i’
try 'fdisk - - help fro more information

any thoughts?

@OldSunGuy well that was a great start :man_facepalming_light_skin_tone:

if I can get the steps above to work, can I get the original SD card to work again? It’s a samsung evo micro sd and way better than the unbranded one I’ve found to try and recover the original setup.

@sdetweil managed to find an old SD card and put a fresh Pi OS on it.
Mounted the old one in an adapter, when I run your sudo fdisk -1, I get
fdisk:invalid option–‘1’
Try ‘fdisk --help’ for more information.

I guess I don’t try you recovery command until this one is happy?

Edit to add, I do have - on the home screen - a boot file and a rootfs file from the old SD card.

@sdetweil my apologies for the very very late reply. To be honest I haven’t wanted to get into it for fear I’ll have to start again.
is this an SD card failure (would it be better to run the MM from a USB drive? I don’t know how easy that is to do.
Going to try and get this looked at now.

Hi folks, I’m fearing the worst at this point.

My magicmirror has been running really nicely on the whole for like a year.
Because computers aren’t really my thing I’ve avoided doing too many updates when the notifications have popped up.

Earlier this week I noticed the screen had completely frozen and the pi was no longer responsive to keyboard inputs, so I felt I didn’t have a choice but to pull the power and try to restart the pi.

now I’m stuck with a screen has a long list of processes, the the bottom one reads,
[ 3.399958] —[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(179,2) ]—

is this game over and start again or can any of the previous setup be rescued.
I genuinely don’t think I know how I did it first time round and got it working as well as it did.

Any help appreciated.