ok, I got the e2fsprogs-1.19.tgz and fixed my e2fs partition. There was 
major corruption in it but e2fsck recovered the important parts (and a 
few things that did not belog on that disk ?!!!). This is strange 
because the disk performed flawlessly until a vfat disk was temporarily 
mounted a few days ago as wd1. I'd say I was trojaned ;-)

Peter