Debian 8 jessie: The root filesystem on /dev/sda1 requires a manual fsck

Question

I was working in Atom on a small webpage and suddendly it would not let me save my file, saying that read-only mode was turned on. I tried to update in the terminal but that would not let me either, so I rebooted hoping that would fix the issue. Instead I ran into more problems.

The first error was in the BIOS: HP error 501. I pressed enter to continue and this screen popped up:

Loading, please wait...
/dev/sda1: recovering journal
/dev/sda1 contains a file system with errors, check forced.
/dev/sda1:
Deleted inode 1048599 has zero dtime.  FIXED.
/dev/sda1: Inodes that were part of a corrupted orphan linked list found.

/dev/sda1: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY:; RUN fsck MANUALLY
        (i.e., without -a or -p options)
fsck exited with status code 4
The root filesystem on /dev/sda1 requires a manual fsck
modprobe: module ehci-orion not found in modules.dep


BusyBox v1.22.1 (Debian 1:1.22.0-9+deb8u1) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
(initramfs) _

Now I am stuck on the (initramfs) command prompt.

How can I get back to my system and files?

Solution

Write fsck /dev/sdax (depends on the drive infected "sda1,sda2 etc") And then enter Then it will ask you many questions for editing just type Yes and after that restart it.

Comments

[Fox]

HP Error 501 appears to describe a corrupt or missing EFI system partition. Is this a new error? Have you been able to boot Linux without seeing this error before? If so, and judging from the output of fsck, you might have a failing hard drive. A quick search of HP Error 501 seems to note that disabling HP Quicklook in the BIOS tends to fix that error though, so that may not be the case

[streamville92]

@Fox Yes this is the first time that this error popped up. So how would I reboot again to get into BIOS. Because I am stuck on the initramfs command and typing in reboot does nothing

[Fox]

The (initramfs) prompt is an actual shell prompt. If reboot the command doesn't work, you might try init 6. Failing that, Alt+SysRq+REISUB is a key sequence to reboot in Linux, which might work here

[streamville92]

@Fox so init 6 came up with "must be run as PID 1." Do you think I should just put in the bootable DVD?

[streamville92]

@Fox do you think this problem is because Debian is uncompatible with my machine? Or maybe my hard drive is actually failing?

[Fox]

It isn't necessarily either, though keeping regular backups never hurts. Drive corruption can be software bugs, failing hardware, bad cabling, or a myriad of other things. And this may not even be drive corruption. Do you have a second machine you can put it in (that is, with different cabling) to check? Anecdote: my CD drive would close immediately upon being opened until I replaced the SATA data cable, so cabling can do unexpected things.

[streamville92]

@Fox yes tomorrow I am picking up a Windows laptop to use for homework and have this linux machine solely for studying unix

[telcoM]

In the (initramfs) prompt, the regular init (whether SysVinit or systemd) might not be running, which would explain why a regular reboot command won't work. Instead, you can use the old-school sync; sync; sync; reboot -f. In other words: manually make sure all the write operations are completed, and then send the kernel the command to immediately reboot the system instead of signaling the init system to perform a shutdown. If the root filesystem is needing a filesystem check, it is probably in read-only mode anyway.

[user2233709]

Why was this answer downvoted? It looks quite correct for me. (The option -y does the same as typing Yes for every question, which I would not recommend.)