Troubleshooting Tip: FortiSandBox - File system check: Not clean message

[adumitru]

Description

This article describes when the following is seen:

• 'File system check: Not clean' in the output of the 'status' command.
  -  A warning in the VM Event logs 'File system on data storage is not clean. Please check file system'.
  
  

This indicates that the file system is not clean and needs to be repaired.

Scope

FortiSandbox.

Solution

To repair the file system, reboot FortiSandBox and repair the file system in rescue mode as follows:

1. Reboot and get to rescue mode. (To access the Rescue Mode, first log in to the FortiSandbox from the console port and open the CLI window. Execute the CLI command reboot then respond yes [y] when prompted. The console will disconnect, then after a minute, the rescue menu will display. It will continue to boot up if no options are selected within 10 seconds.)
2. Press 'c' to check the filesystem and 'y' to confirm.
3. Press 'b' to have the boot device filesystem repaired, and wait for it to complete.
4. Press 'c' to check the file system and 'y' to confirm.
5. Press 'd' to have the data drive file system repaired, and wait for it to complete. It may take a while with RAID settings, please be patient.
6. Press 'q' to boot the system.
7. File system check should be 'clean' now.

In the example below, it shows that the boot disk has the issue (not clean) while the Data disk is fine (clean).

In this case, when scanning/repairing the disk, the boot device is required while the data drive is not; this would save significant time. Boot disk scan may take only seconds, while a 4TB RAID disk could take 30+ minutes.

Example:

FSA3KEXXXXXXX> status
System:
Version: v4.4.7-build0402 (GA)
Serial Number: FSA3KEXXXXXXX
System Time: Wed Jun 04 08:18:18 2025 EDT
SSD Data Disk:
Used: 126 GB
Inode Usage: 0.00%
File System Size: 380 GB
File System Check: Clean
HDD Data Disk:
Used: 397 GB
Inode Usage: 3.54%
File System Size: 3666 GB
File System Check: Clean
Boot Disk:                           <---- boot disk alone
File System Check: Not clean   <----
Image Status Check: OK

Windows VM: Initialized
VM Internet Access: On

Note:

There is another solution to check and repair the file system using the command 'format-storage fsck', this command is only executed on FortiSandBox Hardware models and might format the disk so it is recommended to take a backup before executing it.