"You only have one number...how do you use that one number to find the start of the inodes for each cylinder group?"
ur exactly rite!! thats wat i'm tryin to figure out!!

firstly when i read inode relative to start of each group as u said,i got wrong entries: i verified this with ls -lid /(ie the filesizes and link counts were different)

secondly i read relative to start of fs, i found the correct entries!
but... when it comes to other group inode tables...??????
heres where am in trouble!!!!