Hosed fstab, won't boot how to edit?

Roger Heflin rogerheflin at gmail.com
Sun Jan 25 14:19:03 UTC 2009


Robert Moskowitz wrote:
> Bill Davidsen wrote:
>> Robert Moskowitz wrote:
>>> So I mistyped noatime in /etc/fstab; wished there was a way to test 
>>> this first!
>>>
>>> Anyway, since this is my ASUS Eee and my swap is on the SD card, by 
>>> pulling the SD card the boot halts and puts me into Repair Filesystem 
>>> mode.
>>>
>>> Thing is /etx fstab is readonly. vi fstab won't let me save the file.
>>>
>> I assume you have done the normal "write a ro file" command (:w!) and 
>> that failed as well?
>>
>>> I really don't want to do a complete reinstall yet. I want to buy a 
>>> 8Gb SD card first (and next time I am putting /usr on the SD card). 
>>> So how can I edit this? 
> 
> Yes, that did not work. I am home now, and will just do a reinstall. I 
> was planning one anyway as I figured out the 'best' way to distribute 
> everything between a 4Gb SSD drive and a 4Gb SD drive. When I just had 
> everything (/) on the 4Gb SSD drive as a ext3 partition, the install 
> failed. Moving /var/cache over to the SD drive worked. But now after 
> looking at things, I am going to put /usr on a 4Gb ext3 partition on the 
> SD drive, a 1.5Gb swap and 2.5Gb / ext3 on the SSD drive. I think that 
> is the best I can do until I get a 8Gb SD card, or figure out how to 
> unsolder the SSD drive and install a larger one....
> 
> 

I would (as a last try) try doing the remount with the device rather 
than / and also try adding "-s" to the original remount command.

Or boot it with a install disk and let the install disk mount up the 
stuff on the hd and edit it.

                            Roger




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