e2fsck problem/interpretation

Hi group,

I have three problems relating to using e2fsck (which I haven't used
before).

The first is an easy one. How do I run e2fsck on the drive with the OS
on? Ive been told not to do it to a mounted file system (thank you
Jerry) so how do I scan the drive (which is sda, see later in this
post) whilst its running/mounted (which it obviously must be in order
to boot).

The second and third problems are related to the results of running
e2fsck (with the -n switch) on two other drives. I am getting
differing results from both so was wondering if I could get some
assistance interpreting what is going on.

Firstly I confirmed which drives where which by checking /proc/
partitions.

/proc/partitions :-

major minor #blocks name

8 0 39082680 sda
8 1 200781 sda1
8 2 38877300 sda2
8 16 244198584 sdb
8 17 244196001 sdb1
8 32 33027624 sdc
8 33 104391 sdc1
8 34 39013852 sdc2
253 0 38305792 dm-0
253 1 524288 dm-1

So if I read that correctly my boot drive (40gb) is on sda. There is a
250gb drive on sdb with all the space on partition sdb1 and sdc is a
40gb with the space allocated to sdc2.

Heres the results of running e2fsck on those two partitions with the
space.

sdb
****
# e2fsck -n /dev/sdb1
e2fsck 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
/dev/sdb1 has been mounted 102 times without being checked, check
forced.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
/lost+found not found. Create? no

Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information

/dev/sdb1: ********** WARNING: Filesystem still has errors **********

/dev/sdb1: 39866/30539776 files (7.5% non-contiguous),
35343576/61049000 blocks

sdc
****
# e2fsck -n /dev/sdc2
e2fsck 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
Couldn't find ext2 superblock, trying backup blocks...
e2fsck: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sdc2

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the
superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate
superblock:
e2fsck -b 8193 <device>


What do these results mean and how do I fix the apparent problems?
Thanks for any assistance/help

Tam
.

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