Hello,
I have 4 partitions on my HD (Linux system, swap, Windows, Documents).
I just reinstalled Ubuntu Edgy on my laptop (thus messing around only with the Linuw partition and swap), and since then, GDM doesn't start after boot. I have to start Ubuntu in recovery mode, which stops with the following lines:

* Mounting local filesystems...
* Configuring network interfaces...
* Setting up console font and keymap...
root@jan-laptop:˜#

I have to then start gdm manually. After i login, a window pops up saying:

Initial error
failed to initialize HAL!

Now I can't access my documents partition nor the Windows one, the system doesnt detect any USB devices, and I can't configure my wi-fi and network access.
When running Windows, I can access the Linux partition but not the one with all the documents.

Unfortunately, I'm a complete newbie and don't understand most of the lingo in the forums dealing with such problems.

Any suggestions please?

Thanks in advance

jd

All right, lets finbd the source of the problem, did you format ANY partition during reinstall? Did you clean out your /home directory? (I'm not saying you should do it) Does it show an error? If yes, which one.
I'm not very ubuntu savvy, but when you get this : root@lan-laptop:~# ; try typing init 3 (or init 4 or init 5) and see if it does the same as a normal boot.
Else, try typing in "/etc/init.d/hald start" and then try starting gdm.

Good luck

PS : running GDM as root is a bad idea.

Ok, I formatted the linux system partition and swap, I didn't touch the Windows partition or the documents partition (at least I'm not aware of it). After all, I can still run Windows.

It doesn' show any error.

init 3 started gdm and it seems to have taken care of the HAL problem as well. However, I still can't access the partition with my documents and the Windows partition and I can't get wifi to work.

You can't access those partitons because they aren't mounted. Post the output of these.
#fdisk -l or /sbin/fdisk -l
#cat /etc/fstab

Hmm... none of these does anything.

Ok, I guess the commands were supposed to list the partitions on my disk. They didn't work for some reason, but I think I got this info from the disk partitioner that's on the instalation CD:

Partition Filesystem Size Used Unused Flags
/dev/sda1 ntfs 20.79 GiB 15.49 GiB 5.30 GiB boot
/dev/sda2 ext3 21.51 GiB 2.13 GiB 19.38 GiB
/dev/sda3 extended 972.69 MiB --- ---
/dev/sda5 linux-swap 972.65 MiB --- ---
/dev/sda4 ext3 68.35 GiB 61.90 GiB 6.45 GiB

Partitions sda1,2,4 are not mounted, but I think it might be because I was running Ubuntu from the CD.

Is this info any useful?

ok, could you please tell us which partition is which?
In any case, you could mount them manualy : where you replace "x" by the partition number you want to mount and "mountpoint" by the folder through which you want them accessible. (all this as root)
e.g. :The only problem this could cause is that your files will only be available as root...

I admit this is just evading the problem, but as complete solution, you could try modifying your /etc/fstab accordingly.

Good luck

ah, sorry

sda1 - windows
sda2 - linux system
sda3 a sda5 - swap (for some reason sda5 is inside sda3 - this must have happened during reinstalation)
sda4 - documents

I managed to mount sda4, but as soon as I mount sda1, the system doesn't allow me to access either one of them:

The folder contentc could not be displayed.
You do not have the permissions necessary to view contents of "mystuff". When I unmount sda1, I can access sda4 again. This happenes also when I mount only sda4. It also means that I still can't access sda4 from Windows either (the partition appears in "My Computer," but shows 0 size and when I try to open it, it says it needs to be formated).

I wish I could modify /etc/fstab, but I have no idea how because as I said, I'm really new to linux.

Add these to /etc/fstab

/dev/sda1[tab]/pathto/windows[tab]vfat[tab]auto,noexec,umask=0000[tab]0[tab]0
/dev/sda4[tab]/pathto/documents[tab]vfat[tab]auto,noexec,umask=0000[tab]0[tab]0

[tab] refers to Tab key, don't enter it.

Note: Do this as root. Since you're new to Linux, instead of using the command line, try it in graphical mode, i.e., login as root, browse(explore) to /etc, open fstab in text editor, add the lines, save and reboot.

Thanx, but how do I do that? I couldn`t even find fstab in /etc.
I'm really sorry for my ignorance, so thanx for your patience...

Are you able to get into graphical mode?

I just managed to do everything you wrote, but the problem is still the same. As soon as I mount sda1, both sda1 and sda4 becole inaccessable and I still can't access sda4 from Windows either.

Meaning you do have /etc/fstab, can you post it here please?

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# ?file system? ?mount point? ?type? ?options? ?dump? ?pass?
proc /proc proc defaults
0 0
# /dev/sda2 UUID=6162a90d-b6ca-a91d-8ca0f880c5c6 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# sda5 UUID=bcd9549-dd06-4181-86b1-26b863009203 none swap sw
/dev/sdc0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/sda1 /pathto/windows vfat auto,noexec,umask=0000 0 0
/dev/sda4 /pathto/documents vfat auto,noexec,umask=0000 0 0

I'm not sure which of the spaces are regular spaces and which are [tab].

There's also a fstab.pre-uuid file which says:

# UNCONFIGURED FSTAB FOR BASE SYSTEM

if that's of any importance.

When i said /pathto/windows(documents), i meant your mount point. Ummm, do one thing, create two folders namely windows and documents in /media. Then change the path to reflect these folders if you haven't guessed it by now.

For the swap issue, remove UUID from both those lines, so your /etc/fstab should look like