Can only get to Grub after adept upgrade. What can I do?

[jnorris235]

Accepted Adepts offer to upgrade to Feisty (fool that I am).
However it doesn't even get to a command prompt so I am completely locked out.

Normal procedure.
Switch on - get all sorts of
init:/etc/event.d/tty1:13: unknown stanza
Then when checking root file system...
WARNING: bad format on line 12 of /etc/fstab/
and it just hangs.

Restart
I press Esc for Grub and have the many options - all of which fail to load.
First one: gets a blue Kubuntu loading screen which hangs 3/4 the way through with
WARNING: bad format on line 12 of /etc/fstab/
No access to command prompt, just hangs.

Tried under Grub the first Recovery mode option (Ubuntu kernel 2.6.17-11-386)
Seems to get past the WARNING about fstab but fails with
Setting up console font and keymap

Tried the last recovery option Ubuntu kernel 2.6.15-23-386
and it hangs eventually saying : Begin: Waiting for root file system

No command prompt - so what can I do please?

[jnorris235]

Re: Can only get to Grub after adept upgrade. What can I do?

Pressing 'c' at the grub point doesn't get a command prompt. Still helpless!!

[dibl]

Re: Can only get to Grub after adept upgrade. What can I do?

That sounds miserable -- no help for several hours so this noob will attempt it:

First, here is a thread that shows how you can use a live CD to make a temporary place to mount your broken system:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3082027.0

Once you've mounted the broken "/" filesystem, it looks like you need to take a hard look at Line 12 of /etc/fstab, and see if you can figure out what it is complaining about. Probably you are suffering from the transition to these "UUID-gobbledygook" drive/partition designators. On new installations like mine, it seems to cause no problem, but for those poor folk like you who are trying to use the version upgrade method, I think it's pretty much a disaster. If you can pull up your /boot/grub/menu.lst, and compare the drive/partition it is attempting to boot to what is shown in /etc/fstab, you may be able to detect that fstab does not match menu.lst. Then you will have to edit fstab so that the partition that grub is pointing to is correctly listed in fstab.

This is not a guaranteed solution by any means, just a course for your investigation, with hope for some discoveries .... :P