FC5 unbootable after yesterday's updates

[Claude Jones]

S.W. Bobcat wrote:

> Yep, been there and done that. There seems to be a problem with the 
> 2.6.16 series of kernels. In my case certain apps simply stopped 
> working, and could no longer be installed. I found a clunky but 
> workable work around.  You need to reinstall your system, BUT...
>
> 1) When you get to INSTALL select CUSTOM
> 2) EDIT your pations  however:
> 3) DO NOT format  a) your  /  [root] partiton  b) your /home partition 
> , Leave data unchanged.
> 4) IF you have seperate /var and /tmp patitions, format only those.
> 5) When the screen comes up asking for software to be installed. a) 
> Slect all the GUIs KDE, GNOME, etc.  b) Select all  System Tools, and 
> Admin Tools there might be one more I can't think of at the mpoment 
> but it might be under the graphics. c) UNMARK EVERYTHING ELSE
> 6) continue with the reinstall.
>
> This will bring you back to the original config with the original 
> setup, but you origial data will be preserved and only the corupted 
> files will be overwritten.  There are two areas that you may or may 
> not want to update they are the kernel 2.6.16 series, and the  
> xorg-x11 files. I know the kernal is a problem, because, after a 
> seperate install of the rpm using the rpm -ivh ... .rpm command which 
> installed  the kernel, but left the other kernals in place, when I 
> boot into the 2.6.16 series of kernals, someof my software stopped 
> working, but if i dropped back to the 2.6.15 series the same software 
> that did not run under the 2.6.6 kernal ran just fine. Go figure. The 
> best way to figure out where your problems lie is to use konquer and 
> go back to the last previous date of yout last update, then check the 
> date of your newest update and see what packages have been updated. I 
> would again be careful about updating and installing the kernal and 
> xorg-x11 files ; or slect one or the other and then do the update, if 
> it then fails you can then say "Ah-Ha!!
>
> Hope this helps
>
> Bob
>
>>
>>
>> Did a normal yum update - enabled repos were core, updates,
>> extras, kde-redhat-stable, and kde-redhat-testing (both
>> kde-redhat include the 'all')
>>
>> I didn't make a list but the major stuff updated was gnome and
>> evolution.
>>
>> The machine won't boot into current or previous kernel. It gets
>> to just before the log-in screen and locks up with a blue screen
>> and a frozen pointer. If I boot into run-level 3, I get a log in
>> prompt, but it won't accept a user name - it just returns the
>> same prompt after entering the user.
>>
>> On start-up, I see failures to start crond, sshd, cupsd, and
>> atd -
>>
>
>
I've been on location in Washington for the past two days. Thanks for 
yours, and the other response(s). Last night, I was able to boot a 
couple of rescue cd's, and it appears that I may have a bad sector on my 
system drive. I can't mount my / partition, which is separate from the 
/boot partition, so maybe that explains all the errors. More diagnostics 
tonight...