Topic: cannot open /etc/fstab after aborted Upgrade

[JonCox]

Hi I decided to try to upgrade my SME server from 5.5 to 6.0.
During the upgrade it complained about lack of disk space so I aborted the upgrade (reboot) and now my machine won't reboot.
I get the error "cannot open /etc/fstab" sure enough when I try to look at fstab from the (Repair Filesystem ) CLI i get "Input/output error" fstab. there is a fstab.rpmsave file but I can't copy that across of rm fstab.
Does anyone have any hints before I start a complete rebuild and restore ?
Cheers

Jon

[ldkeen]

Jon,
You are getting the I/O error because the filesystem is mounted read only (ro). If you remount the filesystem read/write (rw) you should be able to copy the file back. You may need to run fdisk to find out where / is mounted. Just type fdisk /dev/hda (if it's ide) then "p" to print out the partition table and q to quit, once you know where the root filesystem is do the following:
#mount -o remount,rw /dev/hdaX
(X being where root is mounted).
HTH,
Lloyd

[JonCox]

Hi Lloyd, I think you could well have been right. At the time I was having lots of trouble with mount and couldn't even mount a good HD as hdc1, so after trying lots of different things I decided to bite the bullet and try the upgrade again. This time it failed completely with a serious disk error. Sure enough the Hd hda1 seems to have completely died. I've borrowed a new HD and have succesfully installed SME6 and restored my data. All seems ok though have a few had a few issues with Postnuke ( Mysql) and Gallery, which I'm working through.
Thanks for your reply I think you were probably bang on the money, so once all is going again if I have time I might have another go(assuming the HD has any life left in it).
Cheers Jon