Can't access /home directory
 

I'm using LinuxMint 8.0 (Helena) in a tri-boot system.
It's installed on two partitions of my hard drive.
/ (root) is on /sda10 - /home on/sda11
Everything's been working fine since I installed about 10 weeks ago. :D
Until last night, when I tried to boot into LinuxMint, I got an error message saying "Cannot access one or more of the partitions listed in /etc/fstab" :(
I was given the option to enter my password to enter a root shell, which I did. I found I could navigate through the directory and access all I tried (of course, the /home directory here showed up as empty, as that is on the other partition). The fstab file was as when I installed, showing /sda10, /sda11 and /sda7 (swap) partitions.
I booted with a live CD to see if I could access /sda11 and rescue my files on /home. Although it showed up as a partition, I couldn't mount it. :(
Is this, as I suspect, caused by hard-drive failure?
Or is there another, more redeemable, explanation?
My thanks in advance for your help. :hattip:

What message do you get when you try to mount it ?????

Thanks for replying.:hattip:
The simple answer to your question is "I didn't".
I right-clicked on the relevant icon, chose mount, but nothing happened.:confused:

Open a terminal and run "mount /home" as root and post what it says

Are you sure you've got that right?:confused:

Shouldn't it be something like:

mount /dev/sda11 ?

After all, only LinuxMint's fstab knows it as it's home partition.

I don't know if there are any switches needed! :study:

It's right if you're booted into Mint. I can't know what you're booted into. sda11 will work wherever. You don't need any switches if everything is OK.

I've managed to mount /sda11 using my old Mint 7 (Gloria) CD.
Quite a few of the directories and files in my home directory are marked unreadable - including some of the hidden system stuff.
I also mounted /sda10 (the root partition), and now the /lost+found and /root directories are also unreadable.:eek:

That can mean only one thing, right?

What do you mean by unreadable? You really need to post the exact error messages / symptoms you're seeing if you want good help. Regardless, sounds like you should unmount and fsck it. I hope you have a backup, too.

When I said unreadable - that's exactly what it meant and that's exactly what it said. If you don't know the meaning of the word, that's hardly my fault, is it? :banghead:
Of course, I've backed up my data. And ordered a replacement. :hattip:

Look, if you want help you need to cooperate. So far you have refused to cooperate as asked (post the exact error messages and the commands you ran too), so I'm not going to spend any more time pulling your teeth.

That suits me fine, chummie.:)
Mercifully, I've now got the answers to my request from another site, where I was dealt with courteously by someone who understood computers and plain English - not an all-mannered, illiterate dentist.

May we know what the answers were, please? I'm assuming it was a hardware failure, but it would be nice to have that confirmed, if you wouldn't mind.

Edit: Don't worry, I see from the other thread that it was indeed a hardware problem.

I'm curt, not impolite. There is a difference. On the other hand, you refused to cooperate at any point along the way, blatantly doubting me (if you knew better, would you be here?), questioning my knowledge and intelligence, and never posting what I asked for. When all you do is throw roadblocks ahead of the people trying to help you, don't be surprised when you don't get any help.

See also the link in my sig for a more verbose treatise that perhaps will come off as more courteous to you.

On the "unreadable" thing, it's not a question of understanding English, it's a question of exactly what you did and what the message you got back said - a cut and paste of commands you ran and their output - and not what your one-word interpretation is. I can imagine several situations that would warrant the word, for example, a) a file you were expecting to find isn't there b) you get "permission denied" when trying to open the file c) you opened the file in an editor and got gibberish, all of which mean different things and have different solutions. Next time, be more precise; this is Computer Engineering, not Poetry.