Boot failure solved

[locutus]

The last time I booted into Mint, I got to a certain point and it stopped. <Ctrl>+<Alt>+Del would get me to the login screen (even though it's set up to log me in automatically) but then looped back to that screen endlessly.

Then when it stopped I read pressing <Ctrl>+D (I think it was "D") and it continued booting fine. Now I don't see that option and I can't get in (I'm writing this from Mepis). How can I fix this? I do not want to reinstall the whole thing -- I've spent weeks tweaking it to be "just right". I only rebooted because Envy wanted to.

Is there a fix? Something I can tweak in the grub? Anything?

[Husse]

Any specific error messages?
You don't have a /home with the same user name in Mint and Mepis do you?

[locutus]

I'll reboot now and see what it says.

I do have a /home with the same name in Mint and Mepis, but they are in different partitions, not both sharing one. Is the way I have it set up ok, or do I have a problem?

[locutus]

I'm back in, this time I did get the Press <Ctrl>+D option to continue the boot process.

I was trying to upgrade my nVidia driver -- thats why the reboot. Why, on the same computer, does Mepis install 169.09 using Envy, but Mint installs 100.14?

I want to try ot the new Crossover Games, I have the trial version but when I first ran it it said there may be video problems because I need the 169.09 version.

[Husse]

So you have /home with the same user name on separate partitions for each distro? Right?
That should not be a problem. The setup I have (which I do not recommend) with one /home and the same user name for two distros (Mint gnome and KDE) can give serious problems - like "going in circles"
I think that if you update Envy in Mint to the latest you get a driver as new as in Mepis. There has arrived quite a few driver versions lately but the Envy in the repos is still the same as when Daryna was released I think
But I have no idea what went wrong unless it's the driver - but I don't read this so

[locutus]

Mepis has a utility that checks file systems. All have passed.

Yet when booting into Mint, I get the following: (after pressing <Ctrl>+<Alt>+F1):

----start----
fsck died with exit ststus 8
[fail]
*File system check failed
A log is being is eing saved in /var/log/fsck/checkfs if that location is writeable
Please repair the file system manually
*A maintenance shell will now be started
CONTROL-D will terminate this shell and resume system boot
bash: no job control in this shell
bash: groups: command not foound
bash: lesspipe: command not found
bash: Command: command not found
bash: The: command not founs
bash: dircolors: command not found
bash: Command: command not found
bash: The: command not found
root@doug-desktop:~#
----end----

And the log file created reads:

----start----
Log of fsck -C -R -A -a
Thu Mar 27 17:13:57 2008

fsck 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
/dev/sda8: clean, 10592/3842720 files, 275101/7679062 blocks (check after next mount)
/dev/sda1: clean, 11/131616 files, 12669/263056 blocks
fsck.ext3: Unable to resolve 'UUID=559290cd-8457-4eb5-ba2e-cb3999b4327e'

/dev/sda5: clean, 158998/1281696 files, 987840/2560351 blocks
/dev/sda6: clean, 31353/3842720 files, 1715501/7679062 blocks
/dev/sda9: clean, 2183/7503872 files, 9568378/14982612 blocks
fsck died with exit status 8

Thu Mar 27 17:13:58 2008
---------------
----end----

These are the current error messages. I have not seen again the error message I saw when I started this thread.

[Fred]

Here is at least one of your problems.... probably all of it.

/dev/sda1: clean, 11/131616 files, 12669/263056 blocks
fsck.ext3: Unable to resolve 'UUID=559290cd-8457-4eb5-ba2e-cb3999b4327e'

Use this in a terminal to get the correct UUID. Then go into /etc/fstab and correct it there and save.

sudo vol_id -u /dev/sda1

Fred

[locutus]

Now I'm confused. The number I got from your terminal command is 2494ad51-c5b8-4898-ac06-d90fb94f6ab7
which according to fstab is sda1.

The UUID that you quoted
559290cd-8457-4eb5-ba2e-cb3999b4327e
as the problem, is for sda10

Here is the entire fstab:
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/sda7
UUID=970f4398-73bd-447a-8b21-86535cf37845 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /dev/sda8
UUID=f18db550-aa66-4521-9061-128e6c0660d8 /home ext3 defaults 0 2
# /dev/sda1
UUID=2494ad51-c5b8-4898-ac06-d90fb94f6ab7 /media/sda1 ext3 defaults 0 2
# /dev/sda10
UUID=559290cd-8457-4eb5-ba2e-cb3999b4327e /media/sda10 ext3 defaults 0 2
# /dev/sda5
UUID=561ea6e9-0780-484a-8f21-d05c342e1930 /media/sda5 ext3 defaults 0 2
# /dev/sda6
UUID=c12738f4-cf2f-427b-8107-9f4acc6c69a6 /media/sda6 ext3 defaults 0 2
# /dev/sda9
UUID=0647b97f-b1b1-4857-8903-e4b00b79e9ff /media/sda9 ext3 defaults 0 2
# /dev/sda2
UUID=d2d59e4d-9157-4bb9-bd7d-794e668c4c95 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hda /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec 0 0

So which one is the error? Does the boot process get confused is a system goes beyond sda9? That log file was cut 'n pasted yet sda10 isn't mentioned. The fstab looks correct but the log file is showing something else. (In case you hadn't gathered yet, Mint /root is sda7 and /home is sda8)

[Fred]

locutus,

Something is obviously scrambled. How it got that way I am sure I couldn't tell you.

This is what I would do. Open Gparted and make a list of what each partition is. sda7 / .... sda8 /home... etc.

Then do that command I gave you in a terminal for each partition. Then go into fstab and make it conform to your new reality. If Gparted says sda10 is /... as an example.... it is. calculate the UUID for sda10 and use it in fstab.

Be careful and watch what you are doing and it should work out for you.

Fred

[Husse]

Or simpler - change (for the entire range)

# /dev/sda9
UUID=0647b97f-b1b1-4857-8903-e4b00b79e9ff /media/sda9 ext3 defaults 0 2

to

# /dev/sda9
/dev/sda9 /media/sda9 ext3 defaults 0 2

I.e. you skip the UUID - it may be useful to keep it for an external disk
This is what I call UUID hell more info in the wiki
http://www.linuxmint.com/wiki/index.php ... _a_problem

[locutus]

I just got up to do the work and saw the second post, which solved the problem perfectly. Rebooted without any errors whatsoever. Thank you Husse, and also Fred for trying to solve this problem I had. Thanks to both !!!