[CentOS] Any alternative to Single User Mode

[Animesh Pandey]

On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 10:51 PM, jd1008 <jd1008 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> 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???
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> CentOS mailing list
>>> CentOS at centos.org
>>> 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.
>
>
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>

I did exactly as you said. I used Gparted to create a secondary drive. I
can do "/dev/" to see the four partitions that my original VM had. How do I
go about it now?