Hello all,

OS Ubuntu Edgy
Linux knowledge lvl: low - moderate (been using for 8mths)

I was upgrading my video drivers (ATI)last night on my laptop and I now am unable to boot to a GUI (KDE). When I start my computer I get this.

* INIT: cannot execute "/etc/init.d/rc5"
* INIT: Entering runlevel: 2
* INIT: cannot execute "/etc/init.d/rc"


Any help would be really nice. Can I restore back to my old drivers with out losing data?

Thanks in advance.

when your boot loader starts push tab, and type in your default os with init 3. For example "Linux init 3" this will pass an option to the kernel to enter runlevel 3. If you still can't get to a prompt, then you'll need to use a live cd or you can use the installation cd.

If you use the installation cd, ignore the install part, (ie switch to another console window) mount your root partition and use chroot, to make it the root partition (this part is optional). If done right, you will have full control over the parition again.

Now the reason for the error....
It looks like your /etc/init.d/rc scripts were chmod'd (permissions changed) or removed.

Thank you for responding...

Okay I was able to mount the drive using an install disk like you recommended. (THANKS)

I have looked @ the /etc/init.d/rcS file and /etc/init.d/rc file and their permissions.

Here are the permissions

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6897 2006-05-23 10:39 rc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 188 2006-05-23 10:39 rcS

Inside of /etc/init.d/rcS I see the this...

exec /etc/init.d/rc S

From my google search and even looking at another Ubuntu system it looks correct. But, obviously it's not or there is another probvlem since I'm getting this error is I restart without an install disk.


* INIT: cannot execute "/etc/init.d/rc5"
* INIT: Entering runlevel: 2
* INIT: cannot execute "/etc/init.d/rc"

So, any ideas on what might be causing this and how I can repair it???

Thanks again

thats pretty odd, do you have any entries in /var/log/messages that might shed more light on the subject? btw, pico or vim /etc/inittab and tell me what they use runlevel 2 for.

As far as going back to your old drivers, were they pre packaged in an rpm? If so you just "rpm -ivh urdriver.rpm" to install them.