Linux Format forums

Re: fstab Problem! Can't access my system, emergency mode only

nelz — Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:22 am

Author: nelz

Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:22 am

No! No! No!

Better late than never, I wouldn't want to disappoint

Re: fstab Problem! Can't access my system, emergency mode only

lobo — Mon Aug 20, 2012 5:31 pm

Author: lobo

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 5:31 pm

Hahah, thank you Dutch_Master, Ram and of course Nelz who's had some fine patience with this rather newbie!!

Now, things have gotten a little better, hopefully I can confirm it later with more testing:
Ok. The last time I was forced to login in emergency mode it showed that I had 4 (or more) fstab swap files and was asked to choose one... I chose the one with the latest change date, (thinking it was the one I edited correctly) with the others eliminated automatically. I then shutdown

So after a reboot I was asked to login normally again, as the main user . That's when I got the warning message mentioned above. So, I tried from root and fortunately was able to enter my desktop with complete UI functionallity ok.
Since from the beginning problems arose from fstab, I decided to look it up ....to my surprise and due to my ignorance, during the last edit I had accidentally typed "shutdown" on the fstab file, thinking I had already exited the file; so, the only text in the fstab was "shutdown"!, nothing else!
So, I then looked up for a backup fstab file I had made way earlier, before I even came to the forums. Fortunately I was able to find it. Both the "new" modified, aka screwed-up fstab, and the old one were opened with kwrite. I then selected+copied all the contents of the backup and pasted over the contents of the "new" fstab. I then deleted, as suggested by Nelz the problematic line containing windows/ D...

I rebooted and now enter as main user password and can finally enter my work desktop normally!!!

I am not sure if everything is ok, so I will do some testing and then see what the external USB HD is behaving like.. and start over again if I need fixing (most likely) the external drive issues, but with Nelzs' early suggestions...

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!

I appreciate any suggestions you may have.
Will stay tuned! Thanks again everybody!! Hopefully I'll be able to leave you off the hook on this!!

Re: fstab Problem! Can't access my system, emergency mode only

Dutch_Master — Mon Aug 20, 2012 5:12 pm

Author: Dutch_Master

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 5:12 pm

True, I figured Nelz would be screaming behind (or rather in front of ) his screen by now. But examining a Linux system via a Live CD appears to me quite useless if the user performing it has too little knowledge of a Linux system in the first place. That's why I advised the best solution is to re-install. even if that's not what Nelz wants to hear

Re: fstab Problem! Can't access my system, emergency mode only

Ram — Mon Aug 20, 2012 4:22 pm

Author: Ram

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 4:22 pm

No No I hear nelz scramming...

Grab hold of a LiveCD and examine your system to see where the space has been used up.

Re: fstab Problem! Can't access my system, emergency mode only

Dutch_Master — Mon Aug 20, 2012 4:10 pm

Author: Dutch_Master

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 4:10 pm

Better? Far from it! It appears your system has some runaway logs or other process that consumes drive space...

Best solution is to re-install, but that might mean you'd loose all data if you haven't backed up or have a separate /home partition.

Re: fstab Problem! Can't access my system, emergency mode only

lobo — Mon Aug 20, 2012 4:09 pm

Author: lobo

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 4:09 pm

I think there has been some progress, though I may have commited some errors these last days while trying to fix things through vi:
After startup, I am now finally prompted to enter my user password at the regular login screen. However, when I enter the password, I get the following message:
"Cannot enter home directory. Using /."

I hit enter, and another screen opens saying: "Call to lnusertemp failed (temporary directories full?). Check your installation." followed by an okay button.

I hit the okey button and greeted once again with the login screen.
Now I entered as root, and was able to enter a session, apparently ok.

Maybe things are getting better?
What should I do now or examine to get back to my main user ?

Re: fstab Problem! Can't access my system, emergency mode only

lobo — Mon Aug 20, 2012 3:57 pm

Author: lobo

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 3:57 pm

I think there has been some progress, though I may have commited some errors these last days while trying to fix things through vi:
After startup, I am now finally prompted to enter my user password at the regular login screen. However, when I enter the password, I get the following message:
"Cannot enter home directory. Using /."

I hit enter, and another screen opens saying: "Call to lnusertemp failed (temporary directories full?). Check your installation." followed by an okay button.

I hit the okey button and greeted once again with the login screen.
Now I entered as root, and was able to enter a session, apparently ok.

Maybe things are getting better?
What should I do now or examine to get back to my main user ?

Re: fstab Problem! Can't access my system, emergency mode only

lobo — Mon Aug 20, 2012 3:02 pm

Author: lobo

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 3:02 pm

Hello again Nelz and thanks again.

Yes. It reads:
Dependency failed. Aborted start of /windows/D
Welcome to emergency mode.............etcetera

Would it be correcto to:
vi /etc/fstab
then just delete the entire line?

Re: fstab Problem! Can't access my system, emergency mode only

nelz — Mon Aug 20, 2012 9:16 am

Author: nelz

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 9:16 am

It is still trying to mount the external drive, all lines referring to it need to be removed or commented.

Re: fstab Problem! Can't access my system, emergency mode only

lobo — Fri Aug 17, 2012 11:57 pm

Author: lobo

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 11:57 pm

I get a rather long text.
it states:

ntfs-3g: failed to access volume '/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000AAJS-00A8B0_WD-WMASY0638851-part1' : No such file or directory

ntfs-3g 2011.4.12 integrated FUSE 27 - Third Generation NTFS Driver
configuration driver type 1, XATTRS are on, POSIX ACLS are off

- then there 4 lines showing copyrights, then:

Usage: ntfs-3g [-o option [,...]] <device| image_file> <mount_point>

Options: ro (read-only mount). remove_hiberfile, uid=, gid=,
umask=, fmask=, dmask=, streams_interface=.
Please see the details in manual (type: man ntfs-3g)

Example: ntfs-3 /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows

News, support and information: http://tuxera.com

- This was copied from the screen to my laptop by hand.
Thanks!

Re: fstab Problem! Can't access my system, emergency mode only

nelz — Fri Aug 17, 2012 11:29 pm

Author: nelz

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 11:29 pm

When you get to the emergency command prompt, what does running

Code:

mount -a

report?

Re: fstab Problem! Can't access my system, emergency mode only

lobo — Fri Aug 17, 2012 11:21 pm

Author: lobo

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 11:21 pm

I hit "i", added "#" to the beginning of the line, then ESC and :wq

Restarted twice and nothing happened. I continue to get the same message prompting me to give root password for emergency mode. This is getting really frustrating... what else can I do?..

(Maybe my mistake is here? I placed # :
"# /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000AAJS-00A8B0_WD-WMASY0638851-part1 /windows/D ntfs-3g defaults 0 0

PS: It always said "defaults" and nor "default", my mistake in copying..)

Thanks again!

Re: fstab Problem! Can't access my system, emergency mode only

lobo — Fri Aug 17, 2012 10:51 pm

Author: lobo

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 10:51 pm

Thanks and agree! trying it out now!

Re: fstab Problem! Can't access my system, emergency mode only

nelz — Fri Aug 17, 2012 10:17 pm

Author: nelz

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 10:17 pm

There are three problems here. The first is that you have a removable drive in fstab, they don't belong there and it is why you could not write to it (devices in fstab are mounted by root). The second is that you added an incorrect option to the fstab line - it is defaults not default, and it wouldn't have made the disk writable by a user anyway (the correct approach would be to fix the umask setting). Finally, you don't have nano installed, so you'll have to use vi. Press i to enter insert (edit) mode, add a # to the start of the offending line. Press Esc to go back to command mode and enter :wq to save and exit.

Vi makes the Windows idea of pressing the Start button to shutdown seem positively intuitive

Re: fstab Problem! Can't access my system, emergency mode only

lobo — Fri Aug 17, 2012 10:01 pm

Author: lobo

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 10:01 pm

Hello Nelz! Thank you very much for your reply.

The earlier change to fstab I did was done while my only problem was not being able to edit my external HD. Everything else was working fine. I accessed it by:

"Alt-F2: kdesu kwrite /etc/fstab"

I then replaced the last portion of the text in "windows D" line (users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_US.UTF-8,nofail) with "default"

After being unable to access my pc, I also tried using nano (as advised on another forum) by "nano /etc/fstab", but it then showed the message "if 'nano' is not a typo you can use command....."
I just tried again with no avail. Am I writing it wrong or maybe I just don't have nano??