Today's Update Broke my Fedora 43 [Because of a Corrupted SSD Sector Apparently]

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1

Hello and thanks for the help in advance.

I installed the system update a couple hours ago from the software center, and after powering down (and I did see it doing the update after powering down), when I returned to boot back up, I get this black screen suggesting something like creating a journal or something. I don’t really understand it (a lot of this goes over my head).

Trying to boot from the previous kernels as well as the recovery modes (all listed on the GRUB) didn’t make any positive impact.

I’m currently on a live media USB writing this post. How would I go about troubleshooting and resolving this issue?

I do have enough valuable information on the drive that I don’t wish to just wipe it and reinstall. After typing this post, I am going to see if I can access that information and start backing it up (I haven’t tried yet). Just in case I do need to wipe and start over.

Thanks again.

Edit/Update:

I asked Brave’s AI for some assistance while I waited and here’s what I concluded/found:

I was trying to mount my root directory while I was on the live USB, and it said it could not access the superblock. I didn’t know what that meant, so I asked Brave’s AI. It suggested that my root directory was likely corrupted.

I have btrfs, so, I ran:

sudo btrfs rescue super-recover -v /dev/sdXX
sudo makedir /mnt/fedora-root
sudo mount /dev/sdXX /mnt/fedora-root

Afterwards, I was able to access the root directory, and it did appear the rescue tool found (and fixed) some bad sector(s) on my SSD (it’s about 5 years old and I use it a ton).

I’m not quite ready to close the ticket yet since there is one issue that needs to be resolved:

I don’t know or understand how a recovery tool works regarding bad sectors. I’m sure it like…tells it to skip that sector in the future or something.

My question is, did I permanently fix it? (as in, will my SSD always know to skip that sector, even if I install other OS’s on it, etc) or do I still need to take some additional step(s) to make the change appropriate/permanent/whatever?

I was able to get off the live USB and boot back from the normal GRUB afterwards.

Thanks again.

2

Back up your data ASAP before you do anything. It can be the drive failing, especially as you mention bad sectors. Advisable plan of action in this case is:

  1. back up all the data
  2. test the drive for errors (check smart, do full read-write surface test)
  3. only after that do any attempts to fix OS errors (that will involve writing to the drive).

If your drive is failing, attempts to fix filesystem errors etc can only make some data irrecoverable.

If a system ssd drive has even a single bad sector, I’d replace it, as the situation will only become worse in future.

3

I appreciate your time and expertise, @andym ! I will go ahead and make a new backup of all my valuable information right now in case I run into any further issues.

In step 2, is that the test that I find in the “Disks” app? The “SMART Data and Self Tests” option?

4

I’m going to call this ticket closed, then.

I’ve been continuing my research in the background after talking to andym.

Course of action:

  • Installed Deja Dup
  • Backed up pertinent folders onto an internal redundant HDD
  • Scheduled automatic backups
  • Praying my SSD hangs on a little while longer while I think about my next steps with my hardware
5

yep you can try this one.
also most SSD manufacturers have service utilities that initiate long internal self-tests.

there are also general utilities for surface tests but i’m not sure which one is best in Linux, perhaps the community will recommend anything here?

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