Can't Boot

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Hi. As usual, I’ve already managed to break suse, in that I currently can’t boot my 11.1 (? Whatever the latest stable is) partition.

It loads to the bootloader fine, but when it tries to load it up, it crashes halfway through to command line, which tells me there are errors and hence a check has been forced - this continues for a bit, then stops at about 30%-ish, spits out a lot of text and errors I don’t really understand, and then gives me a login prompt - when I log in, I’m apparently in repair mode, and while it seems to work ok, I have no idea what to do from there.

I can access the partition through a livecd, though I’m unsure if there’s a way to repair it through that - I’m guessing it’s not as simple as just copying all the stuff from the livecd into the right places :stuck_out_tongue:

Can anyone help? :frowning:

#2

Do you have an installation DVD? If you do then you can invoke an automatic repair and you can sit back and let it happen. Boot off the install DVD and select from the boot menu to Repair Installed System and then choose Automatic Repair.

#3

I only have a livecd at the moment, but I can make an install cd easily enough.

Do I need to back up my home folder, etc, or will that leave it alone?

#4

If your just doing a repair you should be fine, though if you can and have data of value I would back it up.

I suspect you’ll step into a fsck off the repair media, how broke it is could determine what you see afterwards, though confirm how you would get the backup. You could do a fsck of the livecd but the repair media will make the choices easier.

#5

> Do I need to back up my home folder, etc, or will that leave it alone?

of course! backups are a routine way of making sure your data is safe
from all dangers, including disk failure and user induced failure…

–
somebody_else

#6

Well, after finally getting the DVD downloaded and burned, it spits out the following error:


Inodes that were part of a corrupt orphan linked list found
UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY, RUN fsck MANUALLY

Which doesn’t seem good :frowning:

#7

I’m not good with this stuff, but I’ve browsed man fsck →

Run the fsck command command on the offending device
If it’s an ext3 partition, run:

fsck.ext3 -p -v /dev/sdax

You change the x in sdax to match the partition.
That will repair if it’s possible and be verbose about it.
That might give hte answer “clean” and no real result. Then you try this variation:

fsck.ext3 -f -v /dev/sdax

which will force checking even if the filesystem appears clean.

#8

Ok, thanks. Does that have to be ran from the same partition, or can I do it from a seperate one and point it to the damaged one?

#9

You can do this from a live CD. In fact, running fsck against a mounted partition is a recipe for failure and damage.

Basically, I tell people it is like using the toilet with your pants on. Don’t do it.

#10

You said:

…then gives me a login prompt - when I log in, I’m apparently in repair mode…

That’s a root console. You run the procedure from there. No need to complicate life by booting from a live CD. Using a live CD is a red herring in this case.

Regarding “In fact, running fsck against a mounted partition is a recipe for failure and damage”: the partition is not mounted because there’s a problem with it and it can’t mount, so that’s another red herring.

You said:

…can I do it from a seperate one and point it to the damaged one?

You’re already not running from an operating system on the damaged partition, so that’s not a problem. And yes, you do point it to the damaged partition by changing the x in sdax so it refers to the damaged partition in the command lines that I gave you in my earlier post.