fsck exit with status 3

[gpost3]

Can't boot into Ubuntu. Using recovery mode, I get fsck exit with status 3 error. I did man on fsck and there is no reference to status 3. Same issue as http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=457612

Please help as I have my data on sdb3 which is having this issue. File system is ext4. I can't go into shell or anything, I get the fsck error and the system reboots right away and stuck in that loop.

[jramshu]

The exit code returned by fsck is the sum of the following conditions:
1 - File system errors corrected
2 - System should be rebooted

So what it's telling you is it fixed a problem and the machine needs a reboot.
I see you said it rebooted on it's on. Are you saying it just keeps doing it?

[gpost3]

that's exactly what it does. It keeps on checking the file system over and over again and keep rebooting every single time.

[gpost3]

any ideas what is wrong with it? I also tried doing a file system check using gparted in live cd but it returned error saying the partition is already mounted when it actually isn't.

[gpost3]

one thing I did do was run fsck on mounted partition. Any way to fix this?

[Sidewinder1]

One thing I have heard/read, over the years is NOT to run fsck on a mounted drive! That may have been what caused the problem. I don't really have a fix but a good starting point might be to boot to LiveCD and go from there.

Side