Hi all,

I am somewhat of a newbie just introfucing Linux to colleagues. I am having a problem where Fedora core 4 was installed and running fine for some time; recently, some minor modifications were made to /etc/fstab, to automatically mount windows partition at boot time. A copy of /etc/fstab was also placed on /root/Desktop for practice (if you will?) and when the user could not mount a flash disk, the system was restarted.

At which time, /etc/fstab could not be found; X server would not start but was able to log in through CLI. The file in /etc has been renamed as fstab~ for some reason, which would explain why the system cannot find it. I tried to replace it with the copy which was placed on /root/Desktop but /etc is 'Read-only file system.' Have tried chmod to change permissions but it doesn't allow it; it seems the whole / partition was mounted as a Read-only file system, probably cuz /etc/fstab was not found. I also tried Linux rescue but it doesn't even find Linux partitions to mount to /mnt/sysimage. I mounted the partition with the / directory manually but all I can find inside is 'rhinstall-stage2.img'. Can anyone help???

Try using a live cd such as Mepis. You should be able to mount the drive that has /etc and make the changes you need. It seems like someone may have used mv instead of cp when they put the fstab in /root/Desktop. /etc/fstab~ is actually a backup of your original fstab before your made your last changes to it.

Tilde after a file name usually indicates that the file is being edited, and the filename~ is there as long as the file is not closed (saved/quitted) properly, and sometimes even after that. Though the original file should be there too..

If no fstab is found, then no partitions can usually be mounted (since that's what fstab is all about), and thus you don't have a working system. Root partition is mounted read-only if you boot into a "safe mode", and you would need to remount it read-write to get access to the files. If you have a copy of /etc/fstab, you should be able to use a live-cd to copy that in place of the original file /etc/fstab.

I really wonder what partition you mounted if all it includes is rhinstall-stage2.img. I can't say much about this..but if you have a copy of fstab file, use a live-cd or single-user mode to copy it where it should be, and reboot.