Patent ID: 8615496

Claim:
A method of improving file system reliability on a storage medium after a data corrupting event using a journal for a file system comprising: identifying an active transaction region in the journal, wherein the active transaction region includes a first valid transaction defining one or more changes to be made to the file system, and the location of the active transaction region in the journal is specified by a start location and an end location stored in a journal header; replaying the first valid transaction; determining whether the journal contains a second valid transaction beginning at a location beyond the end location specified in the journal header; wherein determining whether the journal contains a second valid transaction comprises scanning the journal until a transaction is reached that contains at least one invalid component and validating the second valid transaction; and replaying the second valid transaction in response to determining that the journal contains the second valid transaction, wherein the replaying comprises making changes to the file system based upon the second valid transaction, and the validating comprises: performing a checksum operation on a data block within the second valid transaction; and identifying the second valid transaction as valid if the result of the checksum operation is equal to a checksum value stored in a journal info block corresponding to the component and a sequence number stored in the journal info block is greater than a previous sequence number of a previously validated component.