Hi,
> My x86 machine, running Mandrake 8.2, is stuck in a loop... everytime it > boots itsays that /dev/hda1 was not unmounted cleanly, and asks if I want to test > the drive... I can'tsay NO! It can't check because the drive is mounted, So it then >drops me > into a rescue login. Irun the e2fsck, and exit from the prompt and the machine >reboots... but I > get the same thingevery boot!! What is on /dev/hda1 ?? If you have the installation CD's then boot in them in rescue mode, and try a careful manual fsck of that partition. The rescue mode can fsck better because it does not have to mount that partition first. I assume that you are still booting with the same kernel, have not changed grub or lilo or messed with fdisk at all... What kind of errors is e2fsck reporting ? It is in principle possible that the hard-drive has started to go... I lost 9 months work from my laptop once which was not fun. If your essential data is not on hda1, you can atleast boot the CD's in rescue mode, mount the other partitions and copy the data somewhere else. I have had to do this before -- if you can mount /usr or something to get to scp/ftp or whatever. If you are really desperate for a single file, then even grub can list the files contents for you [command-line "cat /..."]!!! Good Luck, Q.
