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**musta ruhtinas** · Feb 13, 2008, 04:02 AM

Re: reinstall 7.10? how costly?

not risky at all if you know what you're doing.
i assume you have a separate /home partition
the only part that requires extra attention is the partitioning: make sure you do not format your /home partition and select /home as mountpoint

**Fintan** · Feb 13, 2008, 04:29 AM

Re: reinstall 7.10? how costly?

Just to be on the safe side can you boot into recovery mode, type startx at the prompt and post your fstab? You will find that in /etc/fstab.

If you cannot boot into recovery then you can use the live cd to access your root(/) partition with:
kmenu->system settings->advanced->harddiskd&files->administaration mode click on your / partition and choose enable. Open konqueror and navigate to /etc/fstab. Open with kate.

**tomcloyd** · Feb 13, 2008, 06:20 AM

Re: reinstall 7.10? how costly?

Just to be on the safe side can you boot into recovery mode, type startx at the prompt and post your fstab? You will find that in /etc/fstab.

I have my fstab - it took some cleverness (for me) to get this, but here it is:

Code:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>  <type> <options>    <dump> <pass>
proc      /proc      proc  defaults    0    0
# /dev/sda3
UUID=4e7d6dc8-7123-4ee4-86bc-2bf3072b3dd6 /        ext3  defaults,errors=remount-ro 0    1
# /dev/sda1
UUID=861C20741C206203 /media/sda1   ntfs  defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0    1
# /dev/sda2
UUID=33a6cf95-470d-46a7-b35d-ef32dbd01f4a none      swap  sw       0    0
/dev/scd0    /media/cdrom0  udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec   0    0

Getting it raised several questions, not related to my immediate problem:
1. the Kubuntu text boot screen (remember that I'm on a dual boot machine) offers me a number of choices.
a. normal boot, kernal 2.6.22.14
b. recovery mode boot, kernal 2.6.22.14
c. normal boot, kernal 2.6.22.15
d. recovery mode boot, kernal 2.6.22.15
e. a memory test mode
f. Windows XP

I usually choose "a". My questions:
1. Why are there two kernals offered? What's the difference?
2. What's "recovery mode"? I've searched for documentation on this and not turned up much yet. I have NO idea what I might do with it.

Back to the fstab output, and my 7.10 boot loop problem:

I tried booting into recovery mode, then waited for the prompt of which you speak, and all I got, other than several screenfuls of system output, was this prompt:

Give root password for maintenance
(or type Control-D to continue)

It wouldn't accept my root password at all. At Control-D, it took off again, and ultimately returned me to my login screen loop mess.

So, I see no way to try the "startx" thing. What I did was use the clickable menu icon on the login screen (lower right corner) to change the session type to "failsafe", then login as usual, which brought up a Konsole window. From there, I could locate fstab and redirect cat fstab output to a text file in my Windows partition, which is where I am now.

So, I will continue to try various troubleshooting options to get Kubuntu to boot, and I'd really appreciate your looking at the fstab file and telling me if simply reloading Kubuntu from CD is a safe option for me. In terms of time costs, simply reloading is likely to be a cheaper option for me at this time.

I do NOT have \home in its own partition (didn't know about that option when I set things up originally), if that matters. I'm hoping Kubuntu will just put itself where it is now and do nothing more.

I deeply appreciate your help.

**Fintan** · Feb 13, 2008, 06:37 AM

Re: reinstall 7.10? how costly?

You have two kernels installed becuase you eventually did an update/grade and installed the newer kernel version.

But that is not important right now.

If I understand you correctly you want to do a fresh install and keep your settings/data from /home/username.

Someone else had/has a similar problem. so me being a bit lazy, why don't you just read here:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...5635#msg115635

This should put you on the right path.
Of course it all depends on how big your HD is and how much space your windows is taking up.

Hope this helps

**Qqmike** · Feb 13, 2008, 07:26 AM

Re: reinstall 7.10? how costly?

I had a similar problem as you've had here. Ended up re-installing, as you are also considering. No problem doing that. Go ahead. BUT, your /home is not on a separate partition, so you will lose your personal data files located at /home/your_name. Can you get in there using a live Kubuntu CD and rescue any /home files you need? (Copy them off to your Windows data partition that you mentioned or to a flash drive or to CD.)

I do not presume you wish to mess with this, but after you reinstall and all is well again, you might consider backing up your root partition (and making your home partition separate).
You can back up the root partition using any backup program, like Partimage or GParted Live CD. Or, do it by hand as I do using the powerful dd command (I use dd to copy my root Kubuntu partition to a file in my /home partition; to restore, simply reverse the command; GParted uses dd; Partimage does not). Details here, but don't get too side-tracked right now until you fix your problem first

:
dd Command
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3090824.0

I have a friend who swears by Partimage and can restore his system in just 5 minutes when a problem arises as you have had here.

You had a kernel update -- just use your most recent kernel version 2.6.22-15.
Your GRUB boot menu will carry these updates for you in case you can't get into a new one , you might be able to boot into an older, proven one. Again, nothing to worry about right now, and there's ways to limit how many updates appear in your boot menu & etc. (Can you boot into your previous kernel by the way?)

**tomcloyd** · Feb 14, 2008, 08:34 AM

Re: reinstall 7.10 - long hard night

Progress...from bad to worse, and then...a miracle. First, I checked for free space problems (none found), then renamed my autostart dir to stop it (didn't help), then manually reconfigured the x-server (no help), then reset KDE to default (no help).

That appeared to leave me with the option of reinstalling. I copied my /home dir to my WinXP partition, repartitioned the single partition where the Kubuntu filesystem had been, so that there's about 10 GB for root, and 20 for /home, with 2GB for swap, using a Gparted live disk.

I was up all night working through 6 attempts to install from the CD I downloaded (my first torrent download) and burnt. I got every error imaginable. I kept at it, and it kept getting further down the track each time. Finally, it made it, about 6:30AM. For a while I thought my HD was dying.

The adept died and wouldn't run. I actually figured out how to fix that. And I see that my /home is mounted on the /home partition I created. Wow. I think the sun just came up.

Thanks to all for their many ideas and thoughts. Somehow, it all got me to the finish line. And, yeah, I still love Kubuntu. More every day, in fact.

For the moment...no more problems. Thanks...!

**Qqmike** · Feb 14, 2008, 01:16 PM

Re: reinstall 7.10? how costly?

Good job -- Glad you got it!

**tomcloyd** · Feb 15, 2008, 02:01 AM

Re: reinstall 7.10? how costly?

One more comment.

It was simply an amazing experience to reinstall Firefox, Thunderbird, Aptana Studio, jEdit, and Areca backup (in all cases simply a matter of unzipping some files or having Sun Java 6 to it for me), fire each up, and find that it was as if nothing had happened. So simple. So sensible. When I think of what I have had to do in Windows under similar circumstances...this experience alone seals the deal. Kubuntu for life...!

**Fintan** · Feb 15, 2008, 02:12 AM

Re: reinstall 7.10? how costly?

Congrats

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