Topic: fsck

• Checking and repairing filesystems: fsck, xfs_repair and btrfs check on an unmounted filesystem

  ext4, XFS and Btrfs each ship their own checker with different safety rules: e2fsck and xfs_repair must run on an unmounted filesystem (xfs_repair has a -n dry-run mode), while btrfs check defaults to read-only and warns strongly against --repair. Exit codes and dry-run output, not intuition, decide whether a repair is needed.

  methodology · en · reviewed · knowledge as of 2026-09-24

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