Debian Boot Problems

romleinster · 08-01-2012, 09:57 PM

I've been running debian wheezy with the 2.6.32-5-686 kernel.
I don't recall making any system changes, but when I rebooted last night, the system never came back up. After the usual boot messages, I get this flood of messages:

Code:

INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: Id "6" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: Id "2" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: Id "5" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: Id "4" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: Id "3" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: Id "1" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes

and finally:

Code:

INIT: no more processes left in this runlevel

I Googled it and tried a few of the first fixes, none of which have worked: commenting out entries in fstab, disconnecting and reconnecting data and power cables to hard drives, verified utils-linux is at the most recent version, resintalled grub, ran fsck.

The only access I have to the system is through the rescue mode of a live CD since I can't log in, so there's no information in the boot log, and no new information in any other logs (everything seems to be from before this issue started.)

Anyone know anything I can try to fix this?
Thanks!

frankbell · 08-01-2012, 10:07 PM

Here's an earlier LQ thread that seems to concern a similar issue:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...inutes-457370/

No promises, but it's worth a look.

romleinster · 08-04-2012, 02:30 PM

Frank, thanks for the reply! Sorry for my tardy response, I've been meaning to post something for a while now. I've looked through that thread and tried modifying my inittab to to follow the example (commenting out all profiles except for T0) and also in a number of different ways (running with Profiles 1-6 uncommented, and running with only profile 1 uncommented ), but nothing resolves the issue. However, it does uncover some additional errors. I now see the following:

Code:

lm-sensors: Permission denied
portmap: Permission denied
ppd-dns: Permission denied
procps: Permission denied
udev-mtab: Permission denied
urandom: Permission denied
x11-common: Permission denied
stop-bootlog-single: Permission denied
/etc/init.d/rc: 279: /etc/init.drc: /bin/echo: Permission denied
/etc/init.d/rc: 364: /etc/init.drc: /bin/echo: Permission denied
INIT: Entering runlevel: 2
INIT: cannot execute "/etc/init.d/rc"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/getty"
INIT: Id "T0" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
INIT: no more processes left in this runlevel

In rescue mode I can mount all my different drives and access the files in them from the shell, so I think the hardware is all fine.

One thing that seems strange: Using a rescue disc, I cannot start a shell in /dev/sda1 (it says no usable shells) but this is where I installed the OS. I can, however, mount a shell in /dev/sdb1 (which is just a file storage drive, no OS files reside there).

Is this just a quirk caused by the way rescue mode reads the drives, or is it possible that my mount points and/or fs definitions have gotten confused and that's causing my errors?

Any ideas? All help and advice is greatly appreciated!
Thanks!