Dan Heller wrote:
> 
> ok, I am sorta having urgent problems, i would appreciate any help you 
> guys can offer...

let's see.... ;-)

> so it all started when I decided to compile my own kernel.  when it 
> finished compiling, I felt adventurous, so I thought I would try it.  not 
> surprisingly, it didn't work.  while starting up, it stopped with the 
> message "/etc/rc.conf not configured", which puzzled me a little, so I 
> used the installer utility to change kernels back to the old one that I 
> had been using that I knew worked.  when restarted, it gave me the same 
> error message, about rc.conf.  I figured maybe the file got changed 
> somehow, so I downloaded etc.tar.gz using my powermac and copied the rc, 
> rc.conf, rc.subr, and rc.lkm files into bsd (just to be safe).  

btw, this sounds vaguely like you may have a corrupted filesystem...be
sure to run fsck when you finally get it booting again.

> now when i try to boot, I get the message "could not exec 
> /usr/libexec/getty for /dev/ttye0: file does not exist" (or something 
> damn close to that).  Using the installer utility, /usr/libexec/getty 
> exists, and I rebuilt all of the devices and verified that /dev/ttye0 is 
> there.  I also rewrote my /etc/fstab and verified that all of the 
> partitions were there.

either /usr is hosed or....

> So I am not sure what to do with this error message.  I have a feeling 
> that my /usr partition is not getting mounted because there are not 
> messages about it before the boot process stops.  I don't know how I can 
> get it to mount, though, since it won't drop me into a single user shell 
> like it normally does when there are problems.  I don't understand why it 
> wouldn't get mounted though, since i am using a kernel that I know works 
> and by /etc/fstab has the partition listed.

have you looked at your /etc/fstab?  is it correct?  if you didn't have
your /usr partition mounted at the time the Installer created, your
/etc/fstab will be wrong (it won't include /usr).

> Also, I noticed at one point there was an /etc/nologin file created, I 
> don't know exactly when.  It definately was not there beforehand.

you can delete that from the minishell in the Installer, i believe.

> Anyways, if anyone has any ideas, i would really appreciate them.  I am 
> dreading a full re-install, partially because of the effort and partially 
> because of the data...  oh yeah, almost forgot, it is a Quadra 610, 8 MB 
> RAM, Quantum 2GB drive.

try checking the single-user flag in the Booter's "Booting" options
dialog.  this'll boot you into single-user with / mounted read-only.  I'd
run 'fsck' first, then mount / r/w by hand and modify any files you need
to modify (like /etc/fstab).

i hope this helps.

laters.

--
Colin Wood                                 cwood@ichips.intel.com
Component Design Engineer - MD6                 Intel Corporation
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I speak only on my own behalf, not for my employer.