Here's what worked for me.
 

Regarding /bin/sh: Can’t access tty; job control turned off

Apparently, there are a bizillion reasons that this error occurs, but in my case, it was because the Ubuntu Live CD couldn't recognize some of the hardware on the machine I was installing to. (I was able to install it successfully on other machines--it was just one troublesome machine).

Here is what worked for me:

1. When the bootup screen appears, press F6
2. Type the following: acpi=off irqpoll
3. Press the Enter key.
4. View the Live CD and install Ubuntu.

You have to make sure that this problem is resolved when Ubuntu boots, too. To do that:

1. Boot your computer so that GRUB is displayed.
2. Press the "e" key to go into edit mode.
3. Press "o" to add a new line to the script.
4. Type the following: acpi=off irqpoll
5. Press the Escape key.

In the event that acpi=off doesn't work try replacing the entry above with one of the following:

• acpi=force irqpoll
• nacpitimer irqpoll

You may have to revisit the second set of steps when you upgrade ubuntu.

I hope this helps.

Hello ceton. You are really great!
For the last one month I was facing the same problem. I followed ur steps. Now I got solved my problem. Thank you.

I have an old Toshiba Portege 3480CT that I've used for a couple of years to run Ubuntu successfully until I tried to install v6.10. Now I get the "sh: can't access tty; jog control turned off" error with some messages I haven't fun into in any of the posts on this list.

The first is "You have an unusual or non-standard CD-ROM drive (expecially on certain laptops, which require you to pass parameters to the kernal at boot time." The second is "Can't mount loop back file system."

Here's my system info:

Model:

/static/ash: Can't access tty: job control turned off. is the message I get!

I am a newbie! However... I got this error trying to run the latest Mepis 8 from a live CD. I vaguely remember having this problem before so I opened the case, took the ide cable out of the DVD Rewriter, and plugged it into another DVD ROM. I have now tried both the 32 and 64 versions. Although there are some error messages as it boots, it gets there, seemingly unscathed!

can't access tty: (...) when adding another internal hard drive
 

Hi,

I'm really new at this, and hoping someone can help me out with this problem. I get that same error:

target filesystem doesn't have sbin/init.
No init found. Try passing init= bootarg.
BusyBox v1.10.2 (Debian 1:1.10.2-2) built-in shell (ash)
/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off

It also says that the system couldn't mount various directories from /root; which i'm assuming they system couldn't find them properly.
I am trying to add a multi-partition SATA hard drive from my old computer as a secondary.

I'm currently running Debian Lenny (5.05).

I'm not sure where to go from here. I've tried most of the options I have read in this post with no luck.
I don't know if it's because it's a windows formated hard drive, or something else.

Thanks in advance. (let me know if there's more info you need to help me solve this problem.)

I had the exact same issue, but in my case there where some corrupted iNodes which where fixed by running fsck