[[!meta title="Check the file system of the persistent volume"]]

In rare occasions, you might have to perform a file system check to repair a
broken persistent volume.

Unlock the persistent volume
============================

1. Start Tails, with persistence disabled, and [[set up an administration
   password|startup_options/administration_password]].

1. Choose
   <span class="menuchoice">
     <span class="guimenu">Applications</span>&nbsp;▸
     <span class="guisubmenu">Utilities</span>&nbsp;▸
     <span class="guimenuitem">Disks</span>
   </span>
   to open <span class="application">GNOME Disks</span>.

1. In the left pane, click on the device corresponding to your Tails USB stick.

1. In the right pane, click on the partition labeled as
   <span class="guilabel">TailsData LUKS</span>.

1. Click on the <span class="guimenu">[[!img lib/unlock.png alt="Unlock" class="symbolic" link="no"]]</span> button
   to unlock the persistent volume. Enter the passphrase of the persistent
   volume and click <span class="guilabel">Unlock</span>.

1. In the confirmation dialog, enter your administration password and click
   <span class="guilabel">Authenticate</span>.

1. Click on the <span class="guilabel">TailsData Ext4</span> partition that
   appears below the <span class="guilabel">TailsData LUKS</span>
   partition.

1. Identify the <span class="guilabel">Device</span> name of your persistent
   volume that appears below the list of volumes.
   It should look like <code>/dev/mapper/luks-xxxxxxxx</code>.
   Triple-click to select it and press <span class="keycap">Ctrl+C</span> to
   copy it to the clipboard.

Check the file system using the terminal
========================================

1. Choose
    <span class="menuchoice">
      <span class="guimenu">Applications</span>&nbsp;▸
      <span class="guisubmenu">System Tools</span>&nbsp;▸
      <span class="guimenuitem">Root Terminal</span></span>
   and enter your administration password to open a root terminal.

1. In the terminal, execute the following command, replacing `[device]` with
   the device name found in step 8:

        fsck -y [device]

   To do so, you can type <span class="command">fsck -y&nbsp;</span> and press
   <span class="keycap">Shift+Ctrl+V</span> to paste the device name from the
   clipboard.

1. If the file system is free of errors, the last line from the output of
   <span class="command">fsck</span> starts with <span class="command">TailsData: clean</span>.

   If the file system has errors, <span class="command">fsck</span> tries to
   fix them automatically. After it finishes, you can try executing the same
   command again to check if all errors are solved.
