Force fsck on boot for non fstab device, external usb drive

[cdaringe]

Hi all:

I run a rPi that specifies that specifies it's root fs to be on a different drive, /dev/sda5. Thus, as example config, my kernel params ~= "... console=tty1 root=/dev/sda5 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline rootwait rootdelay=5 coherent_pool=2M cma=2M".

I'd like to do a single check on this drive on boot without having to d/l and finagle with mkinitcpio per the fsck docs. I've tinkered, but little worth of sharing. Supplementing fsck.mode=force to the param list didn't seem to render expected results (I expect to see an error on the disk, EXT4-fs error // ext4_mb_generate_buddy). Seeking pointers. Much appreciated. Let me know if there is any output I can provide.

Thanks,

-Chris

[moonman]

I might be wrong but AFAIK rootfs can't be checked on boot without initrd because it is mounted. Initrd contains the tools to perform fsck and all it contains is in ram before real rootfs is mounted and used.