Often, embedded systems works without a battery, this can generate some problems at boot time, blocking the bootstrap process:

Checking filesystems
IMAGE2: Superblock last mount time (Tue Mar  1 17:32:48 2011,
        now = Thu Feb 22 11:04:29 2013) is in the future.

IMAGE2: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
        (i.e., without -a or -p options)

*** An error occurred during the file system check.
*** Dropping you to a shell; the system will reboot
*** when you leave the shell.

broken-clock

 

the e2fsck tool can be used to avoid this problem:

The e2fsck(8) program has some hueristics that assume that the system clock is correct. In addition, many system programs make similar assumptions. For example, the UUID library  depends on time not going backwards in order for it to be able to make its guarantees about issuing universally unique ID's. Systems with broken system clocks, are well, broken. However, broken system clocks, particularly in embedded systems, do exist. If true, e2fsck will not abort a preen check if it detects a last mounted or last write time in the superblock in the future. This setting defaults to false.
 

to make use of this functionality just use your favourite editor to edit the /etc/e2fsck.conf file. It shall look like the following:

[options]

    broken_system_clock = true

 

Gg1