Hosed fstab, won't boot how to edit?

[Richard Shaw]

On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 3:18 PM, Robert Moskowitz <rgm at htt-consult.com> wrote:
> Ron Siven wrote:
>>
>> Robert Moskowitz wrote:
>>>
>>> Ron Siven 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 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?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> If this is the same as rescue mode booting from the CD/DVD, the file
>>>> system is mounted to /mnt/sysimage. To get root access, use chroot
>>>> /mnt/sysimage. Then use vim to edit /etc/fstab
>>>
>>> The prompt is:
>>>
>>> (Repair filesystem) n #
>>>
>>> Where n is a command number it seems. I had to provide the root password
>>> to get into this mode.
>>>
>>> As for 'chroot /mnt/sysimage', I get:
>>>
>>> chroot: cannot change root directory to /mnt/sysimage: No such file or
>>> directory
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Do you have the CD/DVD that you installed from to boot with? From there
>> you can specify rescue mode and use the method I described above.
>
> I am on the road (IEEE 802.11 meeting in LA) and do not even have a USB CD
> drive... Perhaps I can find one here.

In that case, do you have a USB stick w/ 1GB of free space? How about
a live system installed to it? That should let you mount your /
filesystem and repair fstab..

Richard