Arch Linux

lmcmehil

Member

Registered: 2009-02-11

Posts: 7

Black screen on startup

Did a pacman -Syu and then rebooted after some programs did not work. When rebooting I get
************FILESYSTEM CHECK FAILED****************
* Please repair manually and reboot. Note that the root        *
* file system is currently mounted read-only. To remount      *
* it read-write: mount -n -o remount,rw /                            *
* When you exit the maintenance shell the will                     *
* reboot automatically.                                                      *
***************************************************
checked drives with fsck and get
/dev/sda3 : Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read while reading block 1545
/dev/sda3 : Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read reading journal superblock
/dev/sda3 : Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read while checking ext3 journal for /dev/sda3
sda is my second drive for backups and documents/music/photos
sdb is the root/boot/swap drive
I commented out /dev/sda3 in fstab and arch booted up but got to the last line which is starting kde??(don't know for sure cause it scrolls by so fast) and then I get a black screen with a steady cursor. I cannot ctl+alt+ anything to get to a tty or out of that screen. So I cannot check any logs or files and I don't know what to do now when the only thing I have been able to do is restart the computer and the same thing happens all over.
I guess I need to get a bootable cd (live cd) to get arch up and try to get a terminal to find problems. But reading the instructions for live cd it appears that I have to be in arch first. I am borrowing a windows computer to get on the internet and research.  How can I burn a live arch cd in a windows system?

Last edited by lmcmehil (2009-02-12 02:09:26)

Preacher

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2006-09-26

Posts: 46

Re: Black screen on startup

Easy way to burn ArchLinux on CD as follows

Download Arch from here http://www.archlinux.org/download/
Burn to CD

You can the use the ArchLinux CD to boot into your system using instructions from here
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Off … tall_Guide

If on the other hand you are trying to repair your HDD, then I suggest using the SysRescueDisc from here
http://www.sysresccd.org/

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To be a preacher requires two apparently contradictory qualities: confidence and humility.

Trevorofmolino

Member

Registered: 2008-07-24

Posts: 37

Re: Black screen on startup

Downloaded arch to a cd and restarted with the cd. I do not need to reinstall arch.I just need to inspect my log files and fix what went wrong (probably with kde). But I cannot find how to get to my installed files instead of the cd's files. I tried mount /dev/sda3 and I get there is no such file or directory. sda3 is where most of my files are sda1 is the boot.i am probably missing a step or else I am way off base?

toad

Member

From: if only I knew

Registered: 2008-12-22

Posts: 1,775

Website

Re: Black screen on startup

double post - please don't do that.

fstab? Even better, fsck.extX/dev/sda3 for starters.

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never trust a toad...
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