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Linux will not start - probably a mounting problem.

I am newbie with Linux.

I did a terrible mistake and I hope it can be fixed easily without losing any data.

I installed FC5 and worked with it for few months.

I have the last kernel 2.6.18

I have an IDE HD (hdc1)

Few days ago I've installed a new SATA HD (I think marked as hds1).
I've created a new partition, a new logical volume and mount it. I set the mounting point to "/" ;(

The day after when I try to open the computer, the Linux boot halt at the middle with some errors "...FC5 cannot touch /var/lock/subsys/kudzu Read-only".

I tried to use the DVD in order to "upgrade" the OS. At some point I've got that its cannot find the "/" and I might have a problem with the stable file.

I am almost sure that I need to remove the new mounting point in order to make it work.

Can someone help me with that. I have no idea what to do.
Please write the required steps in detail.

Many thanks,
Shay

Just try it out with a live cd and edit your fstab. This might help you.

--
Prasanta

I used the installation DVD in order to get to rescue mode.
I could not find the fstab file at /etc/fstab

Mount the partition where you have your linux installed. chroot to the partition and then edit the fstab.

--
Prasanta

Quote:

Originally Posted by prasanta

Mount the partition where you have your linux installed. chroot to the partition and then edit the fstab.

--
Prasanta

Can you please guide me through the steps.
I am newbie with Linux ;)

After you have booted with the help of the live, open a terminal and go to the root prompt. Do a fdisk -l, which will list all the partitions. Mount the partitions using the mount command. chroot to the patition where you have your / partition. As an example,

Code:

root@foobar:~$ fdisk -l



Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 4870 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes



  Device Boot    Start      End    Blocks  Id  System

/dev/hda1  *        1      4839  38869236  83  Linux

/dev/hda2          4840      4870    249007+  5  Extended

/dev/hda5          4840      4870    248976  82  Linux swap



root@foobar:~# mkdir /tmp/hda1

root@foobar:~# mount -t ext3 /dev/hda1 /tmp/hda1

root@foobar:~# cd /tmp/hda1

root@foobar:~# chroot .

root@tty[/]# nano etc/fstab

I hope that helps you.

--
Prasanta

I followed your instructions.
However, when I type chroot I get

Quote:

cannot run command '/bin/bash':no such file or directory.

What I am doing wrong?

copy the output of your fdisk -l here so we can see what you have got

then if you can see /etc/fstab when you have mounted the drive copy the output of that to here

(use cat /etc/fstab to view the contents

This is what I get:

Code:

 

Disk /dev/hdc: 41.1 GB, 41174138880 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 5005 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System

/dev/hdc1  *          1          13      104391  83  Linux

/dev/hdc2              14        5005    40098240  8e  Linux LVM

root@slax:~#

root@slax:~#

Under hdc1 I dont see the fstab.
I see the grub folder.

mount hdc1 and post a ls -lh of /

This is what I get:

Code:

root@slax:/mnt/hdc1# ls

System.map-2.6.17-1.2187_FC5smp  grub/                            vmlinuz-2.6.17-1.2187_FC5smp

System.map-2.6.18-1.2200.fc5smp  initrd-2.6.17-1.2187_FC5smp.img  vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2200.fc5smp

config-2.6.17-1.2187_FC5smp      initrd-2.6.18-1.2200.fc5smp.img

config-2.6.18-1.2200.fc5smp      lost+found/

root@slax:/mnt/hdc1# ls -lh

total 8.6M

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 834K Sep 11 05:44 System.map-2.6.17-1.2187_FC5smp

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 861K Oct 14 21:27 System.map-2.6.18-1.2200.fc5smp

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  65K Sep 11 05:44 config-2.6.17-1.2187_FC5smp

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  69K Oct 14 21:27 config-2.6.18-1.2200.fc5smp

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1.0K Oct 27 10:31 grub/

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.7M Sep 28 03:28 initrd-2.6.17-1.2187_FC5smp.img

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.7M Oct 19 01:36 initrd-2.6.18-1.2200.fc5smp.img

drwx------ 2 root root  12K Mar 23  2006 lost+found/

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.8M Sep 11 05:44 vmlinuz-2.6.17-1.2187_FC5smp

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.8M Oct 14 21:27 vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2200.fc5smp

BTW, you don't see the SATA HD because the I have a mother board chip that required kernel 2.6.18 to support it.
The live CD has an older kernel version.
In any case the OS was installed on the first HD (IDE)

Still looking for your help.
Pleas....

how many sub partitions have you got in the LVM partition /dev/hdc2?

I guess some...
How can I see that.
The hdc2 is not mount (I dont know how to mount LVM)