fstab related boot problem

[Steve]

On Sun, 14 Feb 2010 20:10:47 -0000, Graham Watkins  
<shellycat.gw at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> Steve wrote:
>> On Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:46:08 -0000, Graham Watkins
>> <shellycat.gw at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I'm having an intermittent boot problem where the system appears to  
>>> hang
>>> and I get the following message:
>>>
>>>        One or more of the mounts listed in /etc/fstab cannot yet be
>>> mounted: /home: waiting for UUID=7x6fcee8-9505-437f-bb29-b9c894041172
>>> swap waiting for UUID=59a31579-1a6c-46a8-9ecb-7d1679a9943e
>>> Press ESC to enter a recovery shell
>>>
>>> In the recovery shell, I have been able to mount and view the /home
>>> partition although when I then attempt to start X it crashes.  This
>>> happens whether I  do it as root or user (although as user it finishes
>>> booting before it crashes).
>>>
>>> Booting with a live CD and then Googling produced a possible remedy:
>>>
>>> mount -n -o remount,rw /
>>>
>>> then
>>>
>>> dpkg --configure -a
>>>
>>> followed by reboot.
>>>
>>> This did not work.
>>>
>>> Another suggestion:
>>>
>>> sudo mount -o rw,remount /
>>>
>>> or sudo mount -o rw,remount /dev/sda9 (or whichever partition it is)
>>>
>>> followed by
>>>
>>> sudo update-grub
>>>
>>> This also did not seem to work although after a couple of failed
>>> attempts at restarting X and rebooting I eventually managed to get into
>>> the system which is the only reason I am able to post this message.
>>>
>>> However, I managed to get back in once before without doing most of  
>>> that
>>> fancy stuff - I'm not sure why, so I fully expect the problem to occur
>>> again.
>>>
>>> Any suggestions on how to deal with this so I can switch my computer on
>>> in confidence that it will actually start would be appreciated.
>>>
>>> Sorry if this is long-winded but I wanted to give as much information  
>>> as
>>> I could.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Graham
>>>
>>>
>> Sounds a bi like a dodgy drive to me.  I would run the Palimpsest Disk
>> Utility to see if it reports any problems.
>>
>> 	System > Administration > Disk Utility
>>
>>
>>
> Followed your advice and there may be something in it. /dev/sda9 is
> shown as 37Gb unrecognised, unknown and unused.  This is my home
> partition and it is currently mounted.  Palimpsest shows no partition
> label and its type is (0x83)
>
The label will only exist if you gave it one and the type is correct, or  
the same as mine at least.

>
> However this partition is only one partition on a hard disk which
> contains several partitions.  How is it that only two partitions are
> giving this problem?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Graham
>
TBH I have no idea what most of the things Palimpsest reports mean, I just  
know if it reports errors on a drive it will fall apart on you quite  
soon.  Although a faulty cable can cause it to report errors as well.
There little to no documentation on Palimpsest and you have probably found  
Help provides nothing.
As there is clearly a problem my only suggestion is to make sure you have  
a decent backup of that partition.  I would then run fsck on it, from a  
live CD or if you have another Linux on the disk use that.  The partition  
must NOT be mounted when you run fsck.  Or you could try creating another  
/home partition, if you have the space, and see if Ubuntu boots OK then.



-- 
Steve