In comp.os.linux, article <SCT.93Jun11153248@barley.dcs.ed.ac.uk>,
  sct@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Stephen Tweedie) writes:
quoted text
> 
> Indeed, this should never happen if a filesystem is shutdown without
> proper sync()ing; it would take serious corruption to cause an error
> like this.
> 
Probably true... but doesn't help if it happens and you can't get a clean
file system without manual intervention. :-(

quoted text
> However, the best cure for this problem is probably to just clear the
> inode rather than setting its mode to S_IFREG; if the mode itself is
> corrupt then it is very unlikely that the rest of the inode contains
> anything worth salvaging.
> 
You can still try... and since most inodes _are_ files on typical file
systems, the chances that the S_IFREG guess is correct aren't too bad. ;-)

-- 
Statistics are a highly logical and precise method for saying a
half-truth inaccurately.
-- 
Matthias Urlichs  --  urlichs@smurf.sub.org -- urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de   /(o\
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