diff --git a/fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c b/fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c
index 298445f6d3d4..ecb8e05b8b84 100644
--- a/fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c
+++ b/fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c
@@ -456,7 +456,7 @@ struct inode *diReadSpecial(struct super_block *sb, ino_t inum, int secondary)
 	dp += inum % 8;		/* 8 inodes per 4K page */
 
 	/* copy on-disk inode to in-memory inode */
-	if ((copy_from_dinode(dp, ip)) != 0) {
+	if ((copy_from_dinode(dp, ip) != 0) || (ip->i_nlink == 0)) {
 		/* handle bad return by returning NULL for ip */
 		set_nlink(ip, 1);	/* Don't want iput() deleting it */
 		iput(ip);