Hello everybody,

I'm not experienced with linux to solve this problem....
running mandrake 9.2..

when i booted into linux it have me the 4 option to select and i selected "linux". it goes throught some check and
asks

your system appears to have shut down uncleanly
press y with 1 seconds to force file system integrity check. i clicked yes.
checking root filesystem
error reading block 15775 attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read while reading indirect blocks of inode 294339

/dev/hda1: unexpected inconsistency: run fsck manually
failed to check filesystem. do you want ot repair the error. i clicked yes

goes through the check

and takes me to a dos like login screen.. tried login as root but its not working but i can login as generic user

help..
i need this running.. what can i do.....to boot back the way it was..

If you login as a normal user,
can you then
su -
to become root?


Cheers,
Tink

no.. i tried that and it keeps comming up with "incorrect login"...

If all else fails, you can try booting in single-user mode. That gives you very limited access to the system, but you can do things like reset your password. Search for "single user mode" on google for information about how to get to single-user mode on your distro.

Cheers,
Richard Heck

but as a normal user, how can i make it boot into like a gui mode

Until you repair the system, you won't be able to get into X or anything else. Single-user mode should allow you to make the repairs you need to make. Another possibility is to use your original CDs from the install and, when they come up, boot into rescue mode. You may be having a problem running fsck on the root file system when that's mounted. It looks as though you've got some weird corruption there.

try startx

then post any error messages here.

the only option i have is to login as a generic user. having said that i tried the command startx and it keeps displaying command not found... tried running it in several different folders and i get the same..

Do as rgheck said .... use the install CD's for a
recovery boot. Don't mount the root file-system though.



Cheers,
Tink

hi rgheck

it i have several option but not sure whcih to select.. my experience with linux is about 2 months and didn't expect something like this to happen...
from my research, i think i turned the pc off before it could correctly shutdown.. hard leasson learnd and wont happen again..
aways... when i boot in with the cd i hve

1 re install boot loader
2. restore windows boot loader
3 mount your partitions under /mnt
4 go to console
5 roboot
which optoin will fix my problem

let me ask a couple more questions. can you describe for me exactly what happens when you boot? you turn the machine on, and then you get the boot loader. and you boot successfully? or do you get error messages? at that point, you can log in, but only as robin1, or whatever, not as root? give me as much detail as you can. can you see startx on your disk? if so, can you go to that directory and run ./startx? what happens then? are the permissions on it set right? is the /usr file system present?

i'm not very familiar with mandrake, so perhaps someone else could take the specific question. that said, if nothing else works, then i'd try first getting to the console and then, without mounting the root file system, running fsck on that system. (you can't do that safely if it's mounted. that's why tinkster said what he said.) use fdisk to figure out what partition your root file system is on and then run something like "fsck /dev/hda2", substituting the right partition for /dev/hda2, obviously. then see what happens. if fsck reports errors, let us know. but if things are that bad, then i'd suggest that you try to find someone at work, school, church, whatever, who knows linux and get them to help you in person. these kinds of problems are hard to sort out this way.

good luck.

Booting up with the first cd and entering rescue as you did gives you that menu. Select go to console. The root file system is a ram disk, and /dev/hda1 is not mounted, so you can to repair it using fsck.