failed to boot today - mx-14

[namida12]

Just received phone call older MX-14 install and the desktop screen was visible, but mouse would not move this morning. Forced shut down performed to reboot as system. It starts to load, it stops these are the last three lines shown during the reboot:


BusyBox v1.20.2 (Debian 1:1.20.0-7) built-in shell (ash)
enter 'help' for a list of built in commands
/bin/sh: can't acesss tty; job control turn off

He is about 1 hour drive, hoping someone knows how to proceed, or what can be done before I head his way. He moved the last of his photos from windows into his Linux home last night, went to bed tired and this morning system was frozen. We did experience 70-90 mph winds gusts last night, and he is on the out skirts of Vegas, maybe his electric blinked, but that is only a guess.

[namida12]

No info or suggestions on this fail to boot

Currently I am planning use a Live CD to backup his must save items to an external hard drive. Complete a new install and then move all the saved files on the external hard drive back into the new MX-14 install.

Only hassles I am anticipating will be the two printer setup that I struggled to get running.

JR

[chippy52]

I seem to recall seeing that message when I had a corrupt fstab.

[BitJam]

The busybox error happens very early in the boot process before the root partition gets mounted. The only things loaded from disk at that time are the bootloader (of course), the kernel, and the initrd. There should have been an error message indicating what the problem is *above* those three lines which are boilerplate. For that to fail, there would have to be either a hardware problem or some significant damage to the file system.

How long did it work before the mouse problem?

The mouse problem is not directly related to the reboot problem unless the forced shutdown led to severe disk corruption. An fsck might fix the file system but it won't help fix the mouse problem. A power glitch could explain the freeze. So best case is a power spike froze the system and a forced shutdown corrupted the file system. I hope you used either ext3 or ext4. In this case fsck from a LiveCD/USB should fix everything (best case). If they are an hour away, can you leave them a LiveCD/USB? OTOH, I know some people who it would be pointless to give Live media to. If fsck doesn't work then a reinstall is the best option unless you want to do forensics to try to recover data. Only do forensics as a last resort if there is no other copy of the data and you need to get it.

20 - 20 hindsight: not a good idea to leave the computer on during a storm.

[lucky9]

Plus never trust a HDD with the only copy of important data. Make an optical copy while you're there. And show them how to leave a DVD session open for putting more data on the disk. When it no longer has room then you can close the session.

[namida12]

I seem to recall seeing that message when I had a corrupt fstab.

Is there an easy way to rebuild the fstab? I will search the forum.

The busybox error happens very early in the boot process before the root partition gets mounted. The only things loaded from disk at that time are the bootloader (of course), the kernel, and the initrd. There should have been an error message indicating what the problem is *above* those three lines which are boilerplate. For that to fail, there would have to be either a hardware problem or some significant damage to the file system.

How long did it work before the mouse problem?

The mouse problem is not directly related to the reboot problem unless the forced shutdown led to severe disk corruption. An fsck might fix the file system but it won't help fix the mouse problem. A power glitch could explain the freeze. So best case is a power spike froze the system and a forced shutdown corrupted the file system. I hope you used either ext3 or ext4. In this case fsck from a LiveCD/USB should fix everything (best case). If they are an hour away, can you leave them a LiveCD/USB? OTOH, I know some people who it would be pointless to give Live media to. If fsck doesn't work then a reinstall is the best option unless you want to do forensics to try to recover data. Only do forensics as a last resort if there is no other copy of the data and you need to get it.

20 - 20 hindsight: not a good idea to leave the computer on during a storm.

The MX-14 system has been install since it went gold. Mouse Problem, was really a frozen system discovered this morning. Used ext4 file system for root and home. He has a disk, but he has more to learn about computers. He has been doing a decent job of sorting images, would be easy to just copy the files to external hard drive if the drive is mountable.

Plus never trust a HDD with the only copy of important data. Make an optical copy while you're there. And show them how to leave a DVD session open for putting more data on the disk. When it no longer has room then you can close the session.

Files are still on raw devices, iPhone, iPad, old hard drive, many memory sticks, and some CD/DVDs so mostly this Linux was being used to sort thousands of photos in a safe environment, while listening to music. With a Netflick film enjoyed between image sorting sessions...

JR

[Stevo]

Hopefully, it's just a system file that got corrupted, but I'd check the disk for bad sectors, as well as running an fsck, during the reinstall. Maybe when it's all set back up the way it was, you can run Systemback and create a reinstallable DVD and leave it with him. Either that, or he gets a LiveUSB with persistence.

[MX-tester]

If the /home is on a seperate partition (always advisable), you can reinstall without worry, however a file system check (fsck) is the first thing I'd do (run from live media). Creating a new fstab is quite easy, you just need to know which partitions hold which data & on what file systems (i.e. ext4).
Run

Code: Select all

sudo blkid

to find out.

[namida12]

Hopefully, it's just a system file that got corrupted, but I'd check the disk for bad sectors, as well as running an fsck, during the reinstall. Maybe when it's all set back up the way it was, you can run Systemback and create a reinstallable DVD and leave it with him. Either that, or he gets a LiveUSB with persistence.

fsck.ext4 /dev/sda5
e2fsck 1.42.5 (29-Jul-2012)
/dev/sda5: recovering journal
Error reading block 1090097 (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read). Ignore error<y>? yes
Force rewrite<y>? yes
Clearing orphaned inode 394257 (uid=1000, gid=1000, mode=0100600, size=65536)
Clearing orphaned inode 409693 (uid=0, gid=0, mode=0100644, size=1361)
Setting free inodes count to 401233 (was 402179)
Setting free blocks count to 1054713 (was 1102692)
/dev/sda5: clean, 123055/524288 files, 1042439/2097152 blocks
root@mx1:/home/demo/Desktop# fsck.ext4 /dev/sda7
e2fsck 1.42.5 (29-Jul-2012)
/dev/sda7: recovering journal
Setting free inodes count to 5621536 (was 5623284)
Setting free blocks count to 18359098 (was 18435147)
/dev/sda7: clean, 14560/5636096 files, 4184774/22543872 blocks
root@mx1:/home/demo/Desktop# fsck.ext4 /dev/sda5
e2fsck 1.42.5 (29-Jul-2012)
/dev/sda5: clean, 123055/524288 files, 1042439/2097152 blocks

Now to restart and see if I got lucky...

JR

[namida12]

System booted easily after running fsck, thanks to BitJam, chippy52, lucky9, MX-tester, and Stevo for your rapid support.

Was not certain of fsck, command and the partions to check.

Code: Select all

sudo blkid 

blkid was very helpful thanks did not have a clue about that command.

Code: Select all

fsck.ext4 /dev/sda5 and 
fsck.ext4 /dev/sda7 

Since this is a ext4 and not ext2, or ext3 I ran the command as above: I discovered a casual warning: "fsck can sometimes assumes you have a ext2 system and will corrupt more. Please designating the drive format type for safely using fsck."