Ubuntu 9.04 boot hangs at "/etc/rc2.d/s00stop-readahead start"
 

Made a stupid n00b mistake and now I can't recover. I wanted to see more info in the message logs during boot so I edited the /etc/init.d/rc file and removed the '#' before the debug line hoping that I would get more verbose bootup messages. Well, after rebooting the system hangs with the following as the last 2 lines on the screen:

/etc/rc2.d/s00stop-readahead start
splash_progress 133

I rebooted several times and it hangs at the same place.

I've tried the recovery boot, dropping to root shell to change the /etc/init.d/rc file back by adding in the # but apparently I am unable to write to the file (something about no swap available). So I can't get back into the system to change the rc file back to normal.

Appreciate any assisance in getting my rc file back to normal.

Maybe try using a recovery distro that you can boot from a cd or a usb-thumbstick (assuming you have access to another computer with which to burn the cd !). Boot into the recovery system and then fix the file.

I was able boot into recovery mode using GRUB. Problem is that when I try to edit the rc file I'm not able to save the changes. In VI I get the error message "E303: Unable to open swap file for "/etc/init.d/rc", recovery impossible". Any clue about how to overwrite the rc file without reinstalling the entire distro?

After looking around a bit more I found that if I add the following to the end of the kernel parameters on the recovery mode boot options:

rw init=/bin/bash

Once I booted into the recovery mode I was able to edit the rc file and re-comment out the debug line. All is good.