I installed a new hard drive on the second IDE channel and went into fstab so that it would mount each time I boot. I obviosly did something wrong big time because RH wont boot at all , not from rescue or emergency boot modes.
When boot gets to checking root filesysytem it says:
Couldnt find matching file system:LABEL/dev/hdb5 which is the disk I just installed.

I edited the fstab file using pico to set the automount but must have written it wrong. Now I need to edit fstab back again but how can I do it. I have been able to get into fstab but only as read only from root. Cant undertand why that is.?


There must be a way to sort this without a complate re-install? I'm pretty much a newbie so any suggestions in words of one syllable please.

Thanks for reading.

I have managed to reproduce the problem that you have described. It looks like you changed the line in fstab that defines the root file system. During boot while repreducing your problem I was dropped to a shell. The root file system is mounted as read-only because the boot-up has not reached the stage where it is remounted as read-write (after the fsck which failed). To make the root file system editable to

# mount -wo remount /

Now you will be able to edit fstab with your prefered editor

# pico /etc/fstab

You need to delete the line that contains "LABEL/dev/hdb5" and replace it with

LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1

Then exit your editor and type

# exit

at the shell.

Now if this was successful then you will be able to boot your system normally again.