Help! filesystem changed....

The Problem:
my XServer freezes and I had to reset the computer. On Reboot it
stopped, cause "filesystem /etc/rc.d/.. is readonly" - Used Knoppix,
but no success - the system wont startup.

The next Problem, my /home - partition was changed from ext3 to
reiserfs - So I can´t boot the system, got no access on the main
partition and my user settings are away.

Any ideas, why and how the filesystem can be changed by a crash? Is
there a way to change reiser back to ext3 without looses data? And how
can a filesystem be changed from knoppix, UBCD, RIP or else LiveCD ?
Which tools are recommended?


using Xandros 3.1 (deutsch)
Asus-Board, Seagate HD IDE + SATA


thanks !

On Friday 30 June 2006 07:56, bjoern_ stood up and spoke the following
words to the masses in /comp.os.linux.misc...:/

> The Problem:
> my XServer freezes and I had to reset the computer. On Reboot it
> stopped, cause "filesystem /etc/rc.d/.. is readonly" - Used Knoppix,
> but no success - the system wont startup.

*/etc* resides on the root filesystem, so if it's read-only, it means
that the system has booted to a "failsafe" state. This is only just so
one could make repairs to partition tables and filesystems, not for
normal use.

Apparently you've hosed some stuff when you hard-reset your computer.
The gold advice is always to try and look for more elegant ways to
reboot the system, or at least just to shut down the offending process.

Many distributions include support for the "magic System Request" keys
in their kernels. You could always attempt to use that sequence -
press and hold /Alt/ and /PrtScr|SysRq/ and then use the key sequence
below while you keep the other two keys pressed down - to try and
safely shut down the system and reboot.

The sequence can be memorized by the mnemonic "Raising Skinny Elephants
Is Utterly Boring", of which you use the first character of each word.

R = set keyboard to /Xlate/
S = emergency /sync/
E = terminate all processes in the current runlevel
I = kill all processes except for /init/
U = emergency remount of all filesystems in read-only mode
B = reset the CPU - i.e. just like a hardware reset

You could also always try to switch to another virtual console using
/Ctrl+Alt+Functionkey[1..6]/ and log in from there to kill the hanging
X server, or - if possible - /ssh/ in from another machine on the
network.

> The next Problem, my /home - partition was changed from ext3 to
> reiserfs - So I can?t boot the system, got no access on the main
> partition and my user settings are away.

It is possible that you had a /reiserfs/ partition after a partition
that was hosed, and that the system therefore counts the partition
numbers wrong.

Either way, you've severely damaged your filesystems, and possibly your
partition table as well... :-/

> Any ideas, why and how the filesystem can be changed by a crash?

I don't think that it was changed. I only think that it was damaged
enough to let the system think that it /might/ be /reiserfs/ instead of
/ext3./ But then again, are you sure you're using the right partition?

> Is there a way to change reiser back to ext3 without looses data?

This is irrelevant, since your partition did not spontaneously convert
to /reiserfs./

> And how can a filesystem be changed from knoppix, UBCD, RIP or else
> LiveCD ?

A filesystem can only changed by reformatting it. Since that didn't
happen in the first place, it wasn't changed either. ;-)

> Which tools are recommended?

/fdisk,/ /cfdisk/ or /sfdisk/ to name the most obvious ones. /parted/
could also prove useful. And then you could try /fsck/ to repair the
filesystem.

Hope this was useful... ;-)

--
With kind regards,

*Aragorn*
(Registered GNU/Linux user #223157)