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I just had an idea to do a filesystem check of all Android partitions when I noticed there is an option to do that for /data /system /cache in STweaks app (which comes also with Dorimanx Kernel) but it warns:

!WARNING! This is a VERY DANGEROUS OPTION![...]

So why is it so dangerous?

2 Answers 2

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It's even riskier than cybersam says. You shouldn't check/repair a mounted filesystem (i.e. when it is in use), on any operating system, because programs might be using the files while you're checking them and possibly making changes. This could cause the checker to think there are errors where there are really no errors; it might cause unexpected behaviour of any program that happens to read or write files during the check; and any files written during the check might be corrupted or completely lost.

On a PC, you can check a non-essential filesystem by unmounting it before the check, or you can check a system partition by booting from a USB stick or CD so that no filesystems from the hard disk need to be mounted. On Android, the closest equivalent is doing it from the recovery: this way, you can check any filesystem other than the one the recovery is on (assuming the recovery doesn't mount the SD card).

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  • (I noticed that chkdsk always unmounts the usb its checking.)So if I check unmounted partitions from recovery is there anything that could go wrong apart from power issues?
    – user42276
    Commented Mar 26, 2014 at 22:47
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    @user42276 The only other possibility is a bug in the recovery. You take that risk whatever software you use.
    – Dan Hulme
    Commented Mar 26, 2014 at 23:04
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It might be that this option will try to repair any filesystem issues that it finds. If a repair attempt does not do the right thing, or is prevented from completion (say, the battery dies), you could end up with unusable files; or, if the repair attempt failed in the system partition, you could end up with a dead device (but you might be able to recover with a factory reset).

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  • why would the attempt fail? (apart from power issues)
    – user42276
    Commented Mar 26, 2014 at 22:49

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