I was trying to practice diskquotas and made changes to the /etc/fstab file. After rebooting i found out that / was not mounting read write. I tried to

mount -n -o remount,rw /

but the message it gives is

/ not mounted already or bad option.
When i checked the mount it shows
/ mounted readwrite.

but any file that i open has a readonly status, meaning that i can't make any change to /etc/fstab file. Can anyone suggest me how to mount the system back into read write mode so that i can make changes to the /etc/fstab file.

Thanx in advance

Aright, this is the only thing that comes to my mind

Use other computer to download any distribution that fits in a floppy disk, there's a variety you can use, one is DLX linux available from

ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pub/opsys/linux/DLX/

other is hal91 Floppy Linux

http://jspiro.tripod.com/linux/hal91.htm

the complete distro list you can get it from

http://www.linux.org/dist/list.html

Once you have booted from your floppy, mount your hard disk in any directory under /mnt with the RW privileges. Then change your fstab and reboot. This should make it.

Good luck & c'ya soon!!!
triaydev

An easy way would be to usea LiveCd like Knoppix, Morphix etc. Just pop the CD in, and reboot. It will load a system from the CD without touching or looking at your hard disk. You can then mount your harddisk and mess around with it as much as you want.

LiveCDs are great as rescue CDs.

Well, yes, as Ebel said, it's much easier if you have broadband access from another computer and then download and burn an ISO of Knoppix or any other Linux distro that runs from the CD without installing. Ease is because these distros usually boot directly to X, giving you a friendly interface to work with. But, if you're not intimidated by command line interface or have no time to download a whole ISO then the floppy distros will give you a faster solution. Either option you choose, keep your rescue floppys/cds handy.
C'ya
triaydev