Reboot issue

[kyledavies]

Hey Guys,

I am very new to the linux, and am having problems resolving an error i get when rebooting. I have no idea what the issue is, if you can offer any advice on what to do that would be awesome. Attached is the screen I get when doing a reboot, there is an error 'Stale NFS file handle which is causing the kernel to through a panic.

Thanks in advance.

[Sunnyside]

I include an image of my Virtual Debian as it is booting up. There is a difference compared to yours, I get the impression your Debian seems to think the computer was hybernated, but cannot resume from the image that was stored in swap. Maybe someone can add.
Debian boot2.JPG

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !

Could you post a bit more clear screen shot? I am not able to read it properly.

[kyledavies]

Attached is a larger screenshot.

[Sunnyside]

My installation is formatted EXT2 where as the OP's is formatted EXT3. /dev/sda5 is the swap partition.
The first real difference I see is when it looks at the swap partition for an image, if the OS was put into hibernation last time it was powered down there would be an image in swap. Mine did not find an image and says it will do a normal boot. Where as Kyle's clearly states it is "Starting manual resume from disk" before it then says "No resume image, doing normal boot", then the word resume shows up again in the next line, and the next line after that says "done".

This gives me the impression there is some sort of image in swap but it is corrupt.

It is not imperative to have swap, so I personally would boot into single user mode if it were me, use vim to edit /etc/fstab file and add a hash (#) in front of the /dev/sda5 swap line so it does not get mounted. Then enter reboot command and let it do a normal boot. If this works, while you are in a normal GUI session, edit /etc/fstab to remove the hash in front of the swap line and save it. Then issue command as root: mount -a or swapon or both to make sure swap gets mounted and the offending data within gets cleared.

This may have been the result of shutting down via the virtual software instead of shutting down from within Debian itself.

[devils casper]

Does OS boot up at all? Post the contents of /etc/fstab file using any LiveCD.

[kyledavies]

Ok, i have used a Knoppix live CD to get the contents of /etc/fstab, image attached. Any help would be greatly appreciated. The OS is not booting, it is still getting stuck on the /sbin/init.


Cheers

[kyledavies]

Ok, so i have also opened the /sbin/init file, and it looks a bit strange, almost as if it is corrupt?

Is there any way to repair this file?

[kyledavies]

Hey Guys,

Any ideas as to how to fix this issue?

[Sunnyside]

I told you how to fix it in post #5.

Detailed instructions:

1: Boot up the Debian VM and put the mouse cursor on top of the VM window and hit enter a few times to have the virtual software suite recognize the keyboard. When the Debian VM displays a boot selection, you should have a selection of two lines in blue color, one should have "single user" in it, usually the second selection. You have five seconds to hit the 'down' arrow key to highlight the 'single user mode' line, then hit enter.
2: Shortly after that you will be required to input your admin. password to do maintenance, after typing it in you will have a root prompt (#). After inputting your admin password, type: vim /etc/fstab. This will open the /etc/fstab file in a command line editor called vim. Hit the down arrow key to bring the highlighted cursor down to the beginning of the line containing "/dev/sda5,...swap".
3: Hit the (i) key to put you into insertion mode, at the bottom of the window should be the word "insert". Now hit the shift+3 keys together to insert a hash (#), once the hash is inserted at the beginning of that line, hit the escape key to take you out of insertion mode.
4: Now, hit the 'shift+semicolon' keys, at the bottom of the window should be a semicolon, then type 'wq!' make sure cap locks is not on, now at the bottom of the window you should see ':wq!', hit enter to write (write changes to the file), quit (exit the editor), ! (now), the vim editor.
5: Type: reboot, this should get Debian to reboot, it should boot into graphics mode without swap partition, you may see an error saying so.

If it does boot into normal graphics mode, open a terminal and enter 'su', then your admin password, then issue command: vim /etc/fstab to open the same file again, remove the hash by putting the cursor on the hash using arrow keys and hit the letter 'x' to remove it.
6: Hit the 'shift+semicolon' key to get the semicolon to show up at the bottom of the window, hit the letter 'w' and 'q' plus the exclamation mark to get ":wq!" and hit enter to write the file with the changes.
After rebooting, it should reboot normally, providing you power down the Debian VM using it's power down switch within Debian. If you power down this OS by hitting the red square in the virtual software window, you'll be back here swearing.