[SWLUG] Help! system won't boot!!

[neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk]

neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk wrote:
> matt at matthewmoore.org.uk wrote:
> > On Sunday 10 February 2008 10:40:50 neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk wrote:
> > > Can anyone help me with this problem?
> > >
> > > On switching my main machine on this morning. It booted up into a black
> > > screen with an prompt. I was able to su to root and issue a reboot.
> > >
> > > It now persistantly boots to a blue screen with a prompt. It won't accept
> > > any id as a log in.
> > >
> > > What is wrong and how do I fix it.
> > >
> > > I had some problems a little while ago with booting and it insisted on my
> > > running fschk to fix some disk problems. Is this related
> > 
> > Have you tried to run a live CD?  If it is a problem with the hard drive you 
> > should be able to find out that way.  It could be that you've got a dodgy 
> > hard drive.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > 
> > Matt
> 
> 
> Thanks for the suggestion Knoppix gives me a whole set of bad sector messages.
> I guess it is the hard disk. Any ideas anyone if can fix it temporarily and just 
> copy everything over. I do have some backups.But there is something I was working on yesterday that I'd like to retrieved anyway.
> 
> Neil Jones
> Neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk
> 
Correction the error messages are on the Knoppix disk!
It tells me that problems with the CD ( which has some damage) are hDD  problems.