[plug] non-contiguous inodes in ext3 - a problem? avoidable?

[Daniel]

Hi,
just reporting back.
I 'asked an expert over a beer' who said the non-contiguous inodes is
just something that happens with ext3.  They seemed confident that ext3
was rugged and that not only was there nothing to worry about with
non-contiguous files, but that this was an acceptable consequence of one
of its features allowing for expansion of some files.

I think more likely to be a problem was my subsequent use of incorrect
parameters with fsck.ext3.  I think the "-nv" is safe and if there are
known problems the "-pv" seems good (what have you got to lose if it's
broken anyway?).  

I thought the -c option was a safe method with no 'write' in its bad
block scan (other than adding errant disk portions to a bad block list),
until you get to "-cc".... looks like I got this one wrong. 
I'll stear clear of "-c" or "-cc" unless checking a data free disk.

Cheers,
Daniel.