[CentOS] Any alternative to Single User Mode

Mon Jun 15 02:51:27 UTC 2015
jd1008 <jd1008 at gmail.com>


On 06/14/2015 08:02 PM, Animesh Pandey wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 9:47 PM, jd1008 <jd1008 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 06/14/2015 07:36 PM, Animesh Pandey wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 9:06 PM, jd1008 <jd1008 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> On 06/14/2015 06:47 PM, Animesh Pandey wrote:
>>>>
>>>>   I actually opened the Virtual Disk Image (.vdi) on
>>>>> http://www.vmxray.com/
>>>>> .
>>>>> I could see that despite my disk being of 100GB only ~65GB was being
>>>>> shown.
>>>>> All the stuff related ot the local user was not visible at all.
>>>>> After I restarted my VM, the OS gets stuck here (
>>>>> http://i.stack.imgur.com/KVYxV.png). Even after trying the single user
>>>>> login it was stuck there. But the emergency mode worked alright.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 8:37 PM, jd1008 <jd1008 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>   On 06/14/2015 06:28 PM, Animesh Pandey wrote:
>>>>>>    Hi,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I am working on Centos6.6 on a VirtualBox on Windows Host. Today I
>>>>>>> started
>>>>>>> to have booting issues in the OS. It won't get past the loading
>>>>>>> screen.
>>>>>>> I
>>>>>>> checked and found that the files related to the user "cloudera" on the
>>>>>>> system were not accessible. Only the files related to root were
>>>>>>> accessible.
>>>>>>> This is why I was am not able to do a single user login but an
>>>>>>> emergency
>>>>>>> login was possible. This is just a guess.
>>>>>>> This all happened due to some update in the Virtual Machine that I use
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> run CentOS.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Is there any workaround for this issue?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks and regards,
>>>>>>> Animesh Pandey
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>    I wish you could provide more info.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> How can you determine that inaccessibility to a user's
>>>>>> files will prevent centos from taking you all the way to
>>>>>> the login (or welcome) screen?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I think something else is going on and my guess is that
>>>>>> the centos files themselves have been corruped.
>>>>>> Can you re-install centos ?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>   Please do not top-post.
>>>> I am having trouble following your terminology.
>>>> Emergency model?
>>>> On my centos installation, there is no "Emergency ...."
>>>> to select from the list of kernels to boot.
>>>>
>>>> Also, when you say "worked alright" do you
>>>> mean that you were able to access what you thought
>>>> was missing?
>>>> Can you go to full multiuser?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   Sorry for top posting.
>>> Let me give you a clearer idea.
>>>
>>> 1. My regular boot freezes after loading is completed.
>>> 2. I read on the internet that sometimes due to an update in VirtualBox,
>>> this error might occur. To rectify it, I must re-install VirtualBox's
>>> Guest
>>> Additions. For this, I require booting in a Single User Mode.
>>> 3. For that, I followed the correct steps as given here (
>>>
>>> https://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/Installation_Guide-en-US/s1-rescuemode-booting-single.html
>>> ).
>>> But still the system froze on that same point.
>>> 4. Then I read about an Emergency mode which is even lower level to that
>>> of
>>> Single User mode. I was able to log in and see the files that I
>>> created/modified as root. I could not see any file/folder that related the
>>> local user "cloudera" on which I used to work. This is where I thought of
>>> seeing the contents of the Image using vmxray.com and found that a large
>>> part of the dick is not visible. This part contains that files related to
>>> "cloudera". I felt as if any information related to "cloudera" user has
>>> been lost.
>>>
>>> I basically need to access files that I made as "cloudera" on CENTOS and
>>> if
>>> possible re-install the Guest Additions that ma solve this issue. But for
>>> this I need to be able to boot as a Single User.
>>>
>> I assume you are using a virtual drive, which is a file on the host
>> machine (You said windows??? ).
>> If you can somehow use a tool to dump that disk image to
>> a real hard drive (for example using dd ), and connect
>> the hard drive a a working linux computer to run fsck on it
>> to see what it will find.
>> I assume you have no backup of your drive???
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>>
> Yes it is windows. By dumping a disk image do you mean a VDI (VirtualBox
> Disk Image). These are files that are used by VirtualBox for booting. I
> have a copy of that as well. Can Gparted be used for connecting that VDI?
>
You will more than likely need a conversion tool to convert a vdi
image to a normal HD image. I do not know of such a tool.

Another possibility is to create another VM, install your linux on it
with it's own separate disk, but add you bad vdi disk
as a second drive. Once booted, use linux to fsck the second
drive.
Again, be sure you have a copy it before you connect it to this
new VM.