From: dseeman@novell.com (Daniel Seeman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.novell
Subject: Re: vrepair finds hundreds of directory errors
Keywords: vrepair nw4mac nfs
Date: 3 Sep 92 17:00:52 GMT
Article-I.D.: novell.1992Sep3.170052.6605
Organization: Novell Inc., San Jose, Califonia

In article <1992Sep3.021208.26392@news.columbia.edu> beecher@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Ben Beecher) writes:
>I'm running NetWare 3.11 with NW4MAC 3.01 and NetWare NFS 1.1 and
>every time I run vrepair I get lots of directory errors.  Last night I
>ran vrepair for the first time in 2 months and fixed hundreds of
>directory errors on each of four volumes.  I ran vrepair a second time
>and fixed several hundred more directory errors.  A few months ago
>when I started getting these errors I moved the MAC volume to a new
>disk with a separate controller, but I still get hundreds of directory
>errors every time I run vrepair.
>
>
>When I tried to repair the SYS volume, which has MAC and NFS name
>spaces, vrepair was unable to load V_MAC.NFS.  I tried to load V_MAC
>from the C: drive but it refused to start.  The first error message
>scrolled off the screen before I could read it, and it was followed by
>many messages of the form: "Loader cannot find public symbol:
><symbolname>", and then "Load file referenced undefined public
>variable".  Then I told vrepair to remove the MAC name space and it
>came back with 10329 directory errors.  The second time I ran vrepair
>on the SYS volume it fixed 2632 directory entries, and the third time
>it found no errors.
>
>I get this message every time I start the file server, but this time I
>also got two messages I hadn't seen before:
>
>	Can't modify directory entry for
>	Can't modify directory entry for
>
>Does anyone know what's going on here?  Is this a problem with NFS?
>With NW4MAC?  With NetWare?  I'm sure it's not a hardware problem
>because I moved the MAC volume to a new disk with a new controller and
>I'm still getting these messages.
>
Hi, 

I will respond to this message in connection with NetWare for Macintosh.  First
of all, when loading V_MAC, you must have VREPAIR loaded before V_MAC will load
successfully.  If VREPAIR is not loaded, then V_MAC will report to you that it
cannot find a number of public symbols etc...Here is your sequence of events:

LOAD VREPAIR
<ALT><ESC> to the server's command prompt
LOAD V_MAC
DISMOUNT <VOLUME NAME>
<ALT><ESC> back to VREPAIR menu and repair the volume in question.

Now, for a few comments.  V_MAC is SUPPOSED TO automatically load when repairing
all volumes except SYS.  But, for safety's sake, please <ALT><ESC> to the server
command prompt and verify that V_MAC loads.  If it does not load automatically,
please load that module manually as indicated above.

VREPAIR works to resolve anomolies in the volume's Directory Table and FAT.  If
VREPAIR finds a number of errors on any single pass, you should run it again.
In fact, for safety's sake, you should run VREPAIR until you find ZERO
errors and then run it one more time (and verify that there are no more errors
on the volume).  

A volume (under many circumstances) cannot damage itself.  As well, once the
volume is severly damaged, you will see some symptoms (volume can't be mounted,
or error messages are displayed).  You can damage the volume by turning
the server machine off without first downing it.  But the damage introduced here
may not prevent you from using the volume when the server is restarted.  The
point is this.  Regular volume maintenance should certainly be a part of every
administrator's procedures.  But the "alarm" should be sounded when FUNCTIONALITY is impacted, not when a few errors were found and resolved by VREPAIR.  If
your functionality has been impacted by some volume damage, that is the time to
begin troubleshooting to find out what caused the symptom so that you can make
sure that it doesn't happen again.

I will stop rambling now, but I hope this information helps and is clear...

Think Peace... And PLEASE V-O-T-E-VOTE!!!

Dan Seeman
Novell
Walnut Creek, Ca.