newbie need help..!!
 

Hi,

I just install Mandrake 9.1 . After successfuly install mandrake on my pc, on startup it will come out with graphical interface to select the user and then login to the X-window (my setting was default to KDE). It works fine for few days, but then when the linux startup, it come out with error, disk -partition is not accessable. and when i startx, i take a look and found out that the "root" directory was locked. then i login as root and tick every option to allow user, group and other to have full access to this directory but still after restart the pc, it still not accessable so ino i need to start KDE manually. Need your help on this.

rgds,
Andre

Any ideas?

When you look at most root stuff as user, it will show it as "locked".

If something is "playing up" and giving "disc read" type errors you might have to log straight in as root to get things going.

I believe that in 9.1, by default, root is a hidden user at login, to correct this, you will need to log in as user, then open the KDE control centre (not the mandrake cc), click system, click login manager, then click users tab and then the "administrator mode" button at the bottom.

Then you just need to uncheck root as hidden user and you should then have your user account and root showing at initial login, so If you have snags logging in as user, you can try root direct and chase the problem from there.

Sorry, this isn't a real answer, but it should ease root access and enable you to get into the system a little quicker (that's presuming that I've understood your question in the first place)!

regards

John

Very noble of you to take up the job as the un-official post bumper ;) I just have one request:
Give at least 24 hours before bumping people's posts for them. This not only gives members of this site sufficient time to respond, but it also gives the poster time to:
a. bump their own post (which should be no less than 24 hours either)
b. Find a possible solution on their own;
c. Return to the site before their post loses it's 0 replies status.

The 0 replies status has quite a bit of pull. The reason being is that a lot of members will come here and "View posts with 0 replies" to answer. If there is 1 reply, and it's:
*bump*
OR
Anyone?
Then they have lost the ability to show their post to many people who would have otherwise have seen it. I personally try to give at least 24, usually more, for my posts before choosing to lose their 0 replies status and bump them.

:)

Thanks!

Cool

Big John,

I have tried your method to "uncheck" the root from hidden user, but the result is remain the same. It always give me this error "ldm_validate_partition_table() : Disk Read Failed" when i log as user and same thing happend in startup. I also try to change the mode by using "chmod 777 /root" but it won't help.

Need your advise on this.

Thanks,
Andre

Is there any chance your drive is going belly up?

Cool

mmm.... I don't get what you mean. I Just want to have the auto login to xgui. This functionality is cool since i do not need to type another command in console for startx and also for shutdown.

rgds,
Andre

same problem.. it seems fairly common (at least from searching on google).

Happened to me after shutting down the system improperly... :(
any disk-check programs similar to window's ScanDisk in linux?

Sounds like you need to run an fsck of the offending partition. I would also advise switching to a journalized file system like EXT3 or ReiserFS at your earliest convenience. It is most likely that you had an EXT2 setup and nerfed up the file allocation table in a lock-up or bad shutdown and now the system is having trouble reading it.

Look online for a tutorial on using the fsck utilities for your particular filesystem. You may have to boot from a recovery disk to do this.

Yep, that's what I meant ;)

Belly Up = bad. I was thinking maybe your drive is going bad, but maybe I am missing something? Anyway, yeah, above mentioned option of fsck sounds like the best place to go next.

Cool