I recently installed Kubuntu 7.10 on a system, dual booting with Freespire 2.0.3. While trying to get the Nvidia drivers loaded in Freespire I ended up with a system that wouldn't load KDE. Since I'm a relative newbie and didn't have anything special loaded there, I merely re-installed Freespire, telling it not to write the MBR to preserve my Grub settings since I've had problems with Freespire overwriting the Grub Menu and then giving me grief when I try to edit it (again, I'm sure, due to my unfamiliarity with the processes required). Ever since I re-installed, I get an error message when booting into Kubuntu that the file system failed the check and I should repair it manually. It then boots to a root prompt. If I hit Ctrl-D, it will load Kubuntu and seems to work fine. Freespire loads without a hitch. The contents of the /var/log/fsck/checkfs file are as follows:

Log of fsck -C -R -A -a
Thu Oct 25 19:59:24 2007

fsck 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
Failed to open the device 'UUID=f194d16e-2b27-4699-b784-bbb1aa047afe': No such file or directory


fsck died with exit status 8

Thu Oct 25 19:59:24 2007
----------------
Does anyone have any idea what is going on and how I can repair it so I don't have to hit Ctrl-D every time I boot up?

Would you post the contents of /etc/fstab (Kubuntu instalation) please? Also post what partitions you have Kubuntu and Freespire installed to and their UUIDs. To find (for example) the UUID of /dev/sda1, as root type:

The Freespire distro is installed on c0fa0cbe-b6a9-4949-adcf-854746aaa598 (/dev/hda1). Kubuntu is installed on 3f18a6a2-50e5-4f6a-ad0a-29162587be22 (/dev/hdb1). The contents of /etc/fstab on the Kubuntu installation are as follows:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/hdb1
UUID=3f18a6a2-50e5-4f6a-ad0a-29162587be22 / reiserfs notail 0 1
# /dev/hda1
UUID=f194d16e-2b27-4699-b784-bbb1aa047afe /media/hda1 reiserfs defaults 0 2
# /dev/hda2
UUID=ca140826-c83c-4a52-8d16-06762db8e142 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdd /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec 0 0

What's strange is the line I've colored red. That's what's giving me the error message. When I look in the "Disk & Filesystems" settings page, it shows it as type-reiserfs, device- (it's blank) and says it is disabled. Can I just remark out that line and see if the error goes away? Could it be left from the original Freespire install since I didn't let it write to the MBR when I re-installed?

The UUID gets regenerated every time the filesystem is reformatted (same for swap BTW). One of the problems with using UUID across multiple systems.

Update the fstab with the new UUID. If you expect to mkfs with any regularity, maybe think about using /dev/sda1 instead, and forget about it. Note (on 7.10) that's sda1, not hda1 - I presume Kubuntu uses the same code base as Ubuntu.

If you update fstab as syg00 suggests, "Disk & Filesystems" will probably list it correctly. I would presume it is listed as disabled because fstab lists a (now) bogus UUID for it, which, as you surmised is what caused the error message.

I changed the UUID and the system now boots straight into the Log on screen with no problems. Thanks a lot for the advice. The one problem I've had switching from Windows to Linux is the lack of good, printed reference material. I taught myself DOS and Windows, mainly from reading some excellent books and reading lots of magazines, especially the tech articles. Then I would try things out. I'm trying to find something similar for Linux. I've heard the "Debian/GNU Bible is a good book to learn from. This was a good case in point. I knew there was something wrong, but wasn't sure where to look. Once I was directed to the fstab file, I spotted the problem, but wasn't sure of the correct way to fix it. I appreciate these forums more than you can believe, but (being somewhat the impatient sort :-)), wish I could just grab a reference book and look up the answer. I have printed copy of the Debian commands, but that doesn't help much in a situation like this.

Get used to using google - it is very unlikely you (any of us) will be the first to stumble over a particular problem.

In this case the Ubuntu devs decision to go with UUID - they seem to make decisions as if no-one would ever consider installing other system(s) (as well).
Very short sighted.

I thought I had read where the "traditional" system of specifying /dev/sda, etc in fstab became unreliable when udev was introduced and that was the rational for going with UUID.

No, the libata change in 2.6.19 changed the designation of P-ATA devices from /dev/hd? to /dev/sd? (the option is still there to use the old designation BTW).
Could be an issue for those of us that do our own kernels.

udev has been "it" for a while now - devfs was removed as an option around the 2.6.13 timeframe.