Re: Disk errors and Reiserfs

[Alan Cox]

> My issue, though, is Linux did not handle it well.  Userspace actually has 
> an 'EIO' error code for this situation but, instead, any program touching 
> the mounted partition hung in a D state.

Thats a reiserfs property and one you'll find in pretty much any other
fs.

> Is it possible for the kernel to handle this with enough grace that you 
> can kill the processes and unmount the partition?  (Thus allowing the box 
> to continue in a hobbled, but function manner.)  Failing that, is it 
> possible for the kernel to handle it well enough for 'shutdown' to cleanly 
> shutdown the box?

Killing the process isnt neccessary, its been halted in its tracks. As to
a clean shutdown - no chance. You've just hit a disk failure, the on disk
state is not precisely known, writes have been lost. Nothing is going to
make a clean shutdown possible under such circumstances.

Alan