Sounds like your root F/S is shagged. Try booting off your Rescue CD and then attempt to repair it with "e2fsck -y". If it can't do that,
John wrote: then try
specifying backup superblock locations, i.e.
# e2fsck -y -b 8193 /dev/hd?? (or whatever your disk device is)
and again with 16385. Run through e2fsck a couple of times to make sure that you get a clean pass. If it can fix it, then this may be enough to mount it cleanly at which point you can try a reboot.
Thanks, I was able to reboot. I di have to use the -f flag now my problem is backing up what I need before a clean install of 7.1. I know what I need from /home. What is absolutely essential from /etc, bearing in mind that I would like a truly clean install, without the old settings to bugger things up. And all i have to use for backup is the windows hard disk. How do I copy files into it. It is mounted but I can't copy to it. The line in /etc/fstab is /dev/hda /mnt/win vfat defaults 0 0 I have never found a way to write to that drive, even to copy a file any tools for this out there?