Hi guys,
I"m trying to start cron and get this error:
@dell: /etc/init.d >cron restart

* Restarting periodic command scheduler crond cron: 45: start-stop-daemon: not found
cron: 45: start-stop-daemon: not found [fail]

I made sure the location of the start-stop-daemon is added in the PATH
here is my crontab contents

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

# m h dom mon dow user command
17 * * * * root cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly
25 6 * * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily )
47 6 * * 7 root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly )
52 6 1 * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly )
#


My start start-stop-daemon is in /sbin

Can anyone help please?

First check that start-stop-daemon is being found:
Assuming you have already done this, you could modify /etc/init.d/cron to prefix start-stop-daemon with /sbin/ this would stop it searching, and ensure it goes to /sbin to run it

(I know this is not an ideal solution but it should resolve the immediate issue)

BTW in my experience there are only six parameters in a crontab file:

1. minute
2. hour
3. day of month
4. month
5. day of week
6. command

Whenever I need to run a command as another user, I tend to start the command with /bin/su - {user} -c {command}

For some reason cron couldn't find my start-stop-daemon..added the location of the daemon../sbin/start-stop-daemon in cron ..that fixed the issue.
thanks Disillusionist.