I reported earlier how a power failure caused a machine to come up in single user mode, and this message: echo "fsck failed. Please repair manually and reboot. The root" echo "file system is currently mounted read-only. To remount it" echo "read-write do:" echo echo " bash# mount -n -o remount,rw / " echo echo "Attention: Only CONTROL-D will reboot the system in this" echo "maintanance mode. shutdown or reboot will not work." echo So I mounted / with the above command and it worked. Then I did a 'umount /' and got an error mentioning the absence of one '/etc/mtab'. I copied /etc/fstab to /etc/mtab ... then when I did a ' umount / ' it didn't error ... hmmm Somehow /etc/mtab got deleted before / was properly umounted... and this must be the trigger for the above"fsck failed" message and subsequent screw job that leaves you unable to change init levels or do much else. I successfully umounted the drive and then proceeded to run e2fsck with evry option known to man to no avail. But when I ran: fsck -Par -b 8193 /dev/sda1 It actually fixed the damn thing. Next, when it booted correctly, I noticed my /etc/mtab that was just a copy of /etc/fstab was replaced by a system generated /etc/mtab that looked like this: /dev/sdb1 / ext2 rw 1 1 none /proc proc rw 0 0 So now I've saved it to an /etc/mtab.backup. I'm closer to understanding the mtab relationship to the mount/umount reboot process, but not entirely sure about a simple recovery procedure. I'm not sure if it was as simple as the "fsck -Par -b 8193 /dev/sda1 ", and the copying of /etc/fstab to /etc/mtab, then mounting and then umounting the drive that reset the mystery flag - but it's something like that. At least now I know a bit more about it. Please publish some solid concrete information about mtab and how it's related to a proper shutdown. If all it needed was to have run " fsck -Par /dev/sda1 "and then copy of /etc/mtab.backup copied to /etc/mtab, and then run fsck or vs versa - then that should be incorporated into your boot recovery process. -tks- -- To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e