Hello James, On Thu, 2012-08-23 at 19:06 -0400, James B. Byrne wrote: > I discovered the problem with the cd-rom. It is just that, a cd-rom, > and I was trying to boot from a dvd rescue disk. I have corrected that > problem, edited fstab, and rebooted the system, apparently with > success, so far. On failed boot one used to be presented with a single user mode root login. Didn't the system offer you that option after failing to mount said partition? It might be you need to "escape away" the graphical boot screen to see that prompt. FYI, the interactive boot mode probably isn't very helpful in a situation like this as mounting partitions is not an option one can skip :) . Regards, Leonard. -- mount -t life -o ro /dev/dna /genetic/research