Root filesystem stuck as read-only - can't boot to GUI.

[Bookworm99]

Hi all,

Yestarday evening, I tried to boot to Linux Mint only to discover that my drive had corrupted and my /etc/ folder was gone. I determined it was TOTALLY gone (though I certainly didn't delete it, I also checked to see if it was moved by accident - I don't usually spend time as root, so I don't see how it happened unless it was while I was in another OS, such as Windows).

Thinking quickly, and following a guide I found on the forums, I ran fsck, replaced my disappearing ETC folder with one from my livecd, made myself a new username (I had to use mount -o remount,rw / in order to actually write to the disk, the first time that something went wrong), and changed the FSTAB to this (I'm fairly sure all the syntax is right; it includes my root directory :

Code: Select all

 
/dev/sda4 / ext3 defaults 1 1

/dev/cdrom0 /media/cdrom auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0 

/dev/sda3 /media/windowshd ntfs-3g defaults 1 2 

/dev/sda2 /media/machd hfsplus defaults 1 3 

When I reboot not in the recovery mode, I get an error which claims that X failed to start. I ran startx, and it tells me it can't get a lock on something or the other and that it is a readonly file system, even though I have specified in my fstab that it should be RW (since that is included in defaults). Why is this happening? Can I prevent it? I need to get back into my system so I can rebuild everything, I CANNOT do a reinstall because I do not have time to backup and reinstall ALL my programs and settings from scratch.

Fortunately, I still have two bootable OSes on my computer - Mac OS X and Windows Vista Ultimate. I am runing a Macbook Pro, bout a year and a half old, with an Intel Core 2 duo 2.33 GHZ processor, 2GB RAM, and a 160GB hard drive. Any and all help is appreciated - thanks!

[Husse]

I can tell you for sure that fstab is wrong (by a mile)
This an edited version of my fstab

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/sda2 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/sda3 /home/my-name/Data ext3 relatime 0 2
/dev/sda1 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0

I can't even see a root partition in your fstab...
I hope you can adjust this to your needs
This line should be there
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
or you get some problems with your processes

[Bookworm99]

It seems that either I'm much less intelligent then I thought or the tutorials lied. I'll get that fixed and let you know how it works out.

[Husse]

much less intelligent

I don't think so, but this is a difficult mater to cope with and you can easily get lost without proper knowledge
And I must say it's a bit daunting to copy the etc folder like you did - you can have problems with apps that are half updated but it's good intelligent thinking even if the question is - is the folder really gone....
I would check my hard disk and copy valuable data to a new disk - this one may be breaking apart