EX200 fsck Practice Question
A filesystem is reported as 'read-only' after a system crash. The admin runs fsck and sees 'clean' status. What is the most likely reason it remains read-only?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often assume that 'clean' means the filesystem is fully healthy and that fsck repairs all filesystem types. The trap is that fsck is for ext four, and XFS requires xfs_repair.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The filesystem is XFS, and fsck does not repair XFS.
If fsck reports 'clean', it means no errors were found in the filesystem's journal, so option D is incorrect. Option C is correct because XFS filesystems cannot be repaired by fsck; they require xfs_repair. Running fsck on an XFS filesystem simply reports the clean flag without performing a real check, leaving the kernel to enforce read-only status if any issues persist.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
fsck cannot fix errors on ext4 filesystems.
Why it's wrong here
This statement is false. fsck is the standard filesystem check and repair tool for the ext2, ext3, and ext4 families; it can detect and fix a wide range of metadata inconsistencies such as incorrect inode counts, bad block bitmaps, and orphaned inodes. The question explicitly leads to an ext4 context only in this option, but fsck absolutely can repair ext4 filesystems, so it is not a valid explanation for why a filesystem would remain read-only.
- ✗
The filesystem is still mounted; fsck cannot fix it while mounted.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. While fsck should not be run on a mounted filesystem, the presence of a 'clean' status and read-only mount suggests the filesystem is not actively mounted for writes; the issue is with the filesystem type.
- ✓
The filesystem is XFS, and fsck does not repair XFS.
Why this is correct
This is correct. XFS is not repairable by fsck; fsck only inspects the XFS log to see whether the filesystem was cleanly unmounted and reports a 'clean' status based on that flag alone, without traversing metadata structures. To actually verify and repair an XFS filesystem you must use the dedicated xfs_repair utility, so a read-only XFS filesystem after a crash would still be reported as 'clean' by fsck while remaining unusable for writes.
- ✗
fsck detected errors but did not fix them automatically.
Why it's wrong here
This is incorrect. If fsck had detected real errors on a filesystem it supports, it would report them and request confirmation before patching, rather than silently leaving the device read-only; a 'clean' status from fsck explicitly means it found no errors to fix. In the XFS scenario described, fsck does not perform a thorough check at all, so it neither detects nor fixes XFS inconsistencies—the 'clean' output is misleading and not evidence that errors were skipped.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This EX200 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Red Hat certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the EX200 exam.