e2fsck: Cannot continue, aborting.

This was the error message I got from my CentOS 6.5 in previous days but I didn't pay attention, 'cause I was trying to boot to Windows 7. So yesterday that I wanted to boot Centos, I got the notification that /var was having issues and that I need to fix using fsck before mounting it.

I used fsck to clean the filesystem but after pressing "Ctrl+D" a reboot was done and while booting again I got stuck again with a message requesting to use fsck to clean the root filesystem, which was mounted as "ro" (read only).

How it was possible to have it mounted read-only and then a request to run fsck? This was not expected and I started to search for an answer.

After looking around at different forums, I decided to use a live cd, clean all the filesystems using fsck and boot again. Same result.

It wasn't a problem with the filesystems or to use fsck to clean them. I stopped yesterday it was very late. Today in the afternoon I checked an alternative that I discarded yesterday at night: check the initrd file.

I used another kernel to boot and everything was running perfectly, the initrd file for kernel 2.6.32-431.5.1.el6.x86_64 was there and no issues at all, but not the initrd file for kernel 2.6.32-431.11.2.el6.x86_64.

So how to create it?  You can look here directly but to save you time here are the steps:

For CentOS 6:

• Create a backup copy of the current initramfs:

  cp -p /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img.bak
  

• Now create the initramfs for the current kernel:

  dracut -f 
  

• If you need to build it for a specific kernel version (replace the version appropriately):

  dracut -f /boot/initramfs-2.6.32-358.el6.x86_64.img 2.6.32-358.el6.x86_64
  

• One useful option you might want to add is -H (--hostonly). With this option dracut installs only what is needed for booting your system. Otherwise dracut by default adds many drivers to the initramfs making its size larger than necessary. Many other options may be exercised. Please see man dracut, man dracut.conf and the upstream Deployment Guide.

Reboot

cd /
sync
telinit 6

The computer reboots, reports that the "kdump" file doesn't exists and was created at that very moment, finally the boot is completed, clean and no issues.

Now all the files needed are available and no issues after reboots, how did this happened?!  I have no idea. Also I can't blame the system going crazy after installing a new hard drive of 1000 GB and seeing all the devices changing. 

The /dev/sda was assigned to the new hard drive (this should have been /dev/sdc), /dev/sdb was assigned to the hard drive were the operating systems are installed (this should have remain as /dev/sda) and /dev/sdc was assigned to the other drive were I have the rest of my data (this was /dev/sdb).

The order should not matter if you are able to identify your partitions by volume id, uuid or label. I used label and the command "lsblk -f" confirmed what I needed to know.

The good thing is, today talking about this to a friend, he told me to change how the SATA cables are connected to the motherboard, I did and now I see the drives in the order I want, just my personal preference.


Update:

Nothing of this fixed the problem but at least boots and I'm able to work with it again.

It was an incorrect option at /etc/fstab for windows partitions:

As you can see, I had "ntfs" only instead of "ntfs-3g", using that option fixed my problem. I don't know why using "ntfs" only before worked without issues.