Upon booting error message about bad superblock on ext2 device
 

It tells me to either run e2fsck, which didn't seem to help, or use a diff superblock address. I tried e2fsck -b 8193 (I think this is the example number they gave me) but didn't help.

What causes this error and what can be done to fix it?

What is supposed to be on the partition... and did you try e2fsck /dev/partition without any options?

This is the root partition. I tried e2fsck -p -v, so I wouldn't have to answer yes or no.

I tried e2fsck /dev/hda8 without options. Also tried e2fsck -b -31987 (the number was somewhere around this) which is I believe to restore a backup superblock for a filestystem whose blocks are 4096 (again not exact number). I'm not too sure what a superblock is, but upon reboot I get the same message.

I realize under /etc/fstab I have my root as /dev/hda10 instead of /dev/hda8. I tried editing by typing vi /etc/fstab, but It says no such session, or something like that.

I am not exactly sure what is going on. It is hard unless I can see the errors you are getting when you run fsck. I don't know if the fstab would affect it, but that is possible.

I am 99% sure fstab is the problem, because fsck is trying to run on a partition that isn't there. The only problem I have now is trying to edit it, do you know why it's saying "no such session" or something along those lines when I try and edit it in vi?

Have you defined $term? Vi has trouble opening without it... define it to something like cons25 (which is pretty generic). If that still doesn't work maybe `ed` will but that requires real good knowledge about that editor and unless you have used it it will just confuse you.

One of my favorite comments about the editor is that it, "Let's you know you made a mistake with the very explainatory '?' error. Based on the error you made you should know what to do to fix it." ;-) Not really user friendly. But that is what the command mode of vi is based on. Anyway, try defining term... or maybe it can't find /etc/fstab ???

I'll try those, have to reboot just thought I'd let you know that I could cat /etc/fstab, so it is there.

I tried defining $term, but wasn't too sure of the syntax so tried ed. I couldn't even use this, it was saying it was a read only file system. I scrolled up to where I get the error message and it said I'm on /dev/console, which would explain why I couldn't write or why certain applications weren't available. I ran Knoppix and edited my /etc/fstab from there. All is well, thanks for the help.

Good to know all went well... even if I didn't have anything to do with it. :-) At least I gave it a shot. Yeah, I forgot that it would have to be r/o if it wasn't clean...