[wellylug] Boot error "INIT: Id "1" respawning too fast:"

[Ewen McNeill]

In message <4.1.20030902222301.01ae38b0 at pop3.paradise.net.nz>, Phillip Rose writes:
>INIT: Id "1" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
>INIT: Id "2" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
>INIT: Id "3" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
>INIT: Id "4" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
>INIT: Id "5" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
>INIT: Id "6" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
>INIT: Id "x" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes

Those entries are supposed to start the getty on the virtual consoles,
and the X server.  For some reason they're not running properly (to be
precise they're either not running at all, or they're exiting very soon
after they start).

Have a look at /etc/inittab (you'll have to boot off something else to do
it -- floppy, CD, another partition, whatever).  You should see
something like:

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1

and so on for the other numbers.

Assuming you do, check that the program it lists still exists (eg,
/sbin/getty), and that the libraries it needs still exist (under /lib).
If your getty is anything like mine it'll want at least /lib/libc.so.*
and /lib/ld-linux.so.*  (If you've got another system, compare what's on
there on the good one with what's there on the broken one.)

If they all seem to be there and okay, then check under /etc for
important files (/etc/passwd, /etc/group, and so on) -- various programs
will misbehave if those core database files are missing.

My gut feeling is that either you've lost some of your library files (or
have mismatching versions of them) or that something has happened to one
of the files that most programs want to read.  (I guess on a modern
system damage to the PAM setup could also do it too -- check /etc/pam.*)

>When I press CTRL+ALT+DEL I see:
>shutdown: warning: cannot open /var/run/shutdown.pid

The file system is read only; or there's no /var/run.  If you've got a
separate /var file system then check it's been mounted properly.
(Running fsck over each partition when booted off the rescue CD probably
wouldn't hurt.)

Ewen