Sometime after installing my DVD-ROM (or reinstalling, once I got a working model) I began having extremely weird and frustrating things happen, especially at bootup. I see the following error messages:
"MOUNTING USB FILESYSTEM: Can't create lock file /etc/mtab/~75: read-only file system (use -n to override)"

"ext2fs_check_if_mount: input/output error while determining whether /dev/hdb7 is mounted [I don't remember that device in the setup -JM]"

"/ contains a file system with errors; check forced."

During the last error message, my HDD makes an irritating thrashing noise. I have to run fsck -A -V; echo ==$?== just about everytime I boot up [and then reboot] in order to get past this point. Once I'm up and running, I hear this thrashing noise a lot, especially when launching a program for the first time (a pain in the butt during SOF)

One last thing: when the bootup is complete, I get a long command line prompt, ending with "DIRCOLORS: 'etc/DIR_COLORS':no such file or directory" from here I can type startx, and KDE seems to run normally except for the thrashing noise and attendant slowdown.

I would appreciate any help very much!

If you don't use USB, disable it.
Then, use a boot disk/installation cd and run fsck on all partitions. It looks there is something not right. Running it when the partition is mounted won't always help.

Thanks for the suggestion. Here's what I get when I boot from my rh 7.1 boot floppy: "Kernel panic: unable to mount root fs on 03:05". I'm out of ideas. I've got 3+ "linux bibles", but I'll be damned if I can find a freaking clue. Maybe it's me.

I've tried some other things, like disconnecting the DVD-ROM and rebooting; no difference from the above ext2fs business. I'm still having to run fsck whenever I boot up, and I swear I'm going to apply a baseball bat to the HD if it doesn't quit making that damn thrashing noise. Like it's looking for something and fussing at me because it can't find it.

I'd really like to resolve this. Thanks to anyone in advance.

Do you have your RH installation cd? If yes, boot from it, choose "rescue" mode and try to run fsck from it.

Sounds frustrating. Not being an expert, it just occurred to me: I had all kinds of problems with windows. I had Norton utilities installed, to doctor everything, memory checks and so.
I finally installed Linux. Straight away the mem check program in the start up menu found that the RAM was at fault, at 64.7 MB. I replaced it and since then have had no trouble with the physical side of things, just getting software to work under Linux is not easy for me.
As I say, just a thought, you might like to check the physical side of things.

Good Luck
Peter

I really appreciate your attention. I booted from the installation CD and typed in "linux rescue" at the prompt. However, when I try to run fsck, I get "Parallelizing fsck version 1.19 (13 Jul-2000) WARNING: Couldn't open /etc/fstab: No such file or directory." What am I doing wrong? Thanks again.

Well, you should be able to use fsck without fstab... Which options are you using and how do you start fsck?

I rebooted, went into BIOS, and forced bootup from the CDROM. At the prompt I entered "linux rescue". I got a prompt for which language and keyboard, then it says it's running anaconda and to please wait. I'm guessing it then goes to a bash shell prompt. Then I type in "fsck -V -A; echo == $? =="
Thanks,
Jamie

Acha! Now it's clear. -A option means fsck reads fstab and checks all filesystem mentioned there. Use
fsck /dev/xxxx (maybe with -V if you wish), where xxxx is your / (hda5, probably; try cat /proc/partitions to see the list).

I booted from the installation CD, typed in "linux rescue", and ran "fsck /dev/hdb7 (where my / is); echo ==$?==". Leaving off the "-A" did seem to help things along, though I noticed it still said, "Couldn't open /etc/fstab; no such file or directory." Then, "/ contains a file system with errors, check forced." Then it went through the thrashing thing, correcting the short reads, etc. I answered "y" to everything, then typed "exit" and then "halt" at the bash prompt, and then rebooted the regular way. No difference at all. Any other ideas? I'm willing to try pretty muchanything at this point.

Could you try this again? I mean reboot, run it once, then again without reboot. The second time there should be no error (or only those most serious ones). If still errors, run it the third time etc. (2 runs are my maximum, I've never had a situation to run it the third time).

I rebooted from the installation CD, ran fsck on /dev/hdb7 three times (as well as three times on hdb1 and 5). It kept returning "== 0 ==". When I then booted normally from the HD, I still had to run fsck and reboot again in order to get through the boot process. All the error messages look the same, and it's still thrashing. It appears nothing has changed.

I don't know if this might be a clue or not, but a common thread among the error messages seems to be that the system doesn't seem to be able to see /etc or anything in it.

Thanks for your perseverance; I really appreciate the help.

Os your /etc on /dev/hdb7 or somewhere else?

I hate to be so ignorant, but how would I go about finding out?

I find the quickest way to locate anything in Linux is simply locate, in a console.

e.g. locate hdb7
or locate *.png
Finds everything really fast!! Sometimes more than you need!