How to edit /etc/fstab when at Fedora “Repair filesystem” prompt?

Posted by
June 28, 2008
  

I faced this situation yesterday when I was working on Fedora Core 6 distribution and was setting up a DRBD cluster for Mysql replication.

I created a separate partition while installing the operating system and mounted it on ‘/data’. Fedora installation does not let you go without specifying the mount point while creating partitions as OS installation time so i did using ‘/data’. I did this for both the machines for cluster and when I configured DRBD for this partition, mount point has been changed.

Mistake: I forgot to remove this entry from /etc/fstab file which takes care of all the mount points. During the setup we did ‘REBOOT’ and STUCK!

Now system was unable to boot the system because it was reading /etc/fstab file was unable to find the device for it. This can also happen when you have some external hard-drive attached with your linux system and you remove device but forgot to clean its entry from /etc/fstab file.

Linux gives you a “Repair Filesystem” prompt in this situation and you can enter that by providing the root password. The problem is that on “Repair Filesystem” prompt, linux file system and rest of the file systems are generally not mounted and if mounted then it is “Read-Only” so you can not change files.

Solution:

Use following command to mount the filesystem with writable permission:

Repair filesystem # mount -w -o remount /

After this you can go and change /etc/fstab file. Restart your computer and that’s it.

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Comments
Comment by Paul Jagadesh on September 16, 2008 @ 10:29 am

Great .. Tan Q

Comment by Aditya on September 23, 2008 @ 3:03 pm

Your most welcome Paul. I am glad that this post become useful for you.

Comment by pranay khobragade on September 30, 2008 @ 11:52 am

i very scare when i got this mesage, i try to recoved from single use mode but it not happen….
but after this is working fine…
actually i am doing diskoquota and changed /etc/fstab entry
and after modification i got error…
thanks a lot

Comment by maxie9 on November 19, 2008 @ 9:18 pm

you rock dude! thanks for the solution.

Comment by Aditya on December 14, 2008 @ 4:34 am

Thanks Man! Good to see that I solved a problem which is getting used by few of us.

Thanks for your encouraging comment.

Comment by Bolanle Matthew on January 15, 2009 @ 4:54 pm

your single line of commands solved my problem.
you are a genius.
thanks.

Comment by wilowilo on January 27, 2009 @ 12:19 pm

I join the others, on the spot!
Too bad it took me like 3 hours of troubleshoot before I found this page. Still quicker than a reinstallation.
Thanks a lot.

Comment by danrey on March 20, 2009 @ 8:57 pm

Thanks for taking the time to post this.

This really worked great

Comment by Aditya on March 22, 2009 @ 7:36 am

Thanks every one for your comments! I am very pleased that some thing penned down by me is getting useful for you all.

Comment by Aadil on May 24, 2009 @ 5:46 pm

Great Help. Saved me several hours. Last night I added an erroneous entry into fstab and I was stuck at the repair prompt.

Thanks a tonne !

aadil

Comment by Aditya on May 25, 2009 @ 7:52 am

Thanks aadil for you comment. Glad to know that you also saved your time using this post.

Comment by Devendra on July 31, 2009 @ 12:03 pm

Great..it works ! Thanks !

Comment by Aditya on August 2, 2009 @ 5:00 pm

Thanks for your comment. I am glad it got used.

Comment by lukas on August 24, 2009 @ 7:13 am

hallelujah & cheers
thnx man

Comment by notme on September 3, 2009 @ 10:23 pm

bravo!

Comment by Aditya on September 7, 2009 @ 6:14 am

Thanks Man!!

Comment by pak eko on December 10, 2009 @ 11:08 am

thanks broo…….

Comment by Sreejith on December 23, 2009 @ 6:27 am

Excellent tip !!!

Comment by Aditya on December 24, 2009 @ 9:35 am

Thanks Sreejith for your comment and time.

Comment by Ken on February 19, 2010 @ 5:10 pm

WOW! U R Da Man!

Comment by GenerousTechie on March 22, 2010 @ 7:24 pm

Great help.

Potentially saved me hours.

Thanks a lot.

Comment by Mukesh Handa on May 11, 2010 @ 9:08 am

Thanks For This artical. Such a nice and easy way to expain the fstab problem.

Comment by JLP on July 14, 2010 @ 12:12 pm

Thanks for the SIMPLE and straightforward article to solve a real problem. Its now saved me TWICE!!

Comment by Yahya Demircan on August 5, 2010 @ 7:14 am

Thanks you for above article

Repair filesystem # mount -w -o remount /
Repair filesystem # reboot

system restart
after some minute
automatically restart
Fedora 11 problem repaired…

Comment by Andreas on August 10, 2010 @ 11:47 am

Thanks a lot, excellent help!!!

greetings from Germany

Andreas

Comment by Aditya on August 22, 2010 @ 11:02 am

Thanks Andreas. Glad to know that it saved your time and was a help to you.

Comment by Aditya on August 22, 2010 @ 11:03 am

Thanks Yahya for your comment.

Comment by Sridhar on September 23, 2010 @ 11:55 pm

Thanks a lot Aditya, you saved lot of time. I really appreciate

Comment by Aditya on September 24, 2010 @ 7:12 am

Thanks for words Sridhar. I am really glad to know that the post is solving and saving time :-)

Comment by Jeff Erdie on January 22, 2011 @ 1:46 pm

Thanks – you just saved me a lot of grief! I’d even tried booting with a knoppix cd and it wasn’t recognizing the file system.

Comment by Krups on April 19, 2011 @ 5:09 pm

I had the same problem.
your solution saved me lot of time

Thank You very much

Comment by Aditya on April 20, 2011 @ 9:54 am

Glad to hear that, Thanks for your time.

Comment by arafat on May 25, 2011 @ 12:50 pm

great! unlike most of the other technical write ups with solutions, it was well written and organized and so allows even a novice to solve the problem. thanks for taking the time to write it up!

Comment by Nick on May 30, 2011 @ 7:47 pm

Works for FC14! Thank you … I though I was going to have to wipe the drive and start over…

Comment by Eli Levy on June 28, 2011 @ 12:18 pm

This works in RH5 as well.
You are indeed a genius !! works great

Comment by chicany on August 6, 2011 @ 11:05 pm

Thanks!

Pingback by What I learnt today: screen resolution and remount | Distracting Pages about Open Source Software on August 10, 2011 @ 7:43 pm

[...] this good man gave me the solution: it’s as simple as remounting in rw mode, with the following [...]

Comment by wiske57 on August 20, 2011 @ 10:22 am

Just what I was looking for, thanks!

Comment by krups nespresso on August 23, 2011 @ 1:54 pm

very nice article, giving some explanation what i search before

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Comment by Ewerton on September 12, 2011 @ 11:23 pm

Man, you saved my night! Thank you very much :-)

Comment by roat on November 17, 2011 @ 5:15 pm

Really thanks for this post, I’ve tried many advice from my friends but it didn’t work.
You’ve done a good job…
Brilliant!

Comment by vj on December 13, 2011 @ 2:40 am

GRT solution !!!

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