Unprocessed orphan inode list in VirtualBox VM

Solution 1:

I managed to solve this problem this morning. Here are the steps I took in case anyone else encounters this problem:

Download a bootable linux .iso.

I am running Ubuntu 14.04 x64 in my VM, so I decided to download the 64-bit Ubuntu 14.04 installation .iso from here. It shouldn't really matter what release you download, as long as it supports your file system and you are familiar with it.

Mount the .iso file in the VM as a virtual CD-ROM.

From the console, run virtualbox to open the Virtual Box configuration GUI. From there, go to: Settings -> Storage -> Add CD/DVD Device -> Choose disk. Browse to the .iso file you just downloaded.

Boot from the .iso file.

Now start the boot process for your VM by using the command vagrant up. During boot, you should be prompted to press a key to select a boot device (For me it was F12). Now select CD-ROM to boot from. The .iso you downloaded should boot. If you are using Ubuntu, select Try Ubuntu. Now, start a Terminal window.

Unmount and fsck the disk

In the terminal, you may first have to unmount the virtual HDD. If your disk is /dev/sda1, use the following command:

sudo umount /dev/sda1

You can then run fsck on the disk:

fsck /dev/sda1

After confirming the fixes, reboot the VM. All should be back to normal.