exec of init failed!!!: permission denied

homey43 · #1 15th August 2007, 04:57 AM

i've been running FC6 for a few months now, and woke up to this catastrophe today. the exact error message is "exec of init (/sbin/init) failed!!!: Permission denied"

it gets to this point after the GRUB screen . my LVMs are found, and then.... kaput.

i'm not sure what happened as my laptop was just idling through the night. but i saw a suggestion from someone else on the forum recommending a rebuild of initrd, as well as try booting from an older kernel version. booting with the older kernel version didn't work; how can i try rebuilding initrd from GRUB?

i'd do a complete reformat/reinstall, but i REALLY need to get a file off of the hard drive before i do that. can anybody help?

kRogue · #2 15th August 2007, 05:20 AM

You could boot of a rescue CD, and go from there.... also if you really need to save a file reinstalling FC does not imply needing to reformat all your LVMs. If you made an LVM for /home and the files that you need to save are there, then you are ok, as from an FC install you can select to use existing LVM's and you can use LVM that you are using from /home as the LVM for the next install /home without reformatting it (I did this when I went from FC4 to FC6)... another and very safe way to get the file back is to get a live distribution and boot from that. Copy the files you need to save to USB memory key (they are cheap even at 2GB)...

homey43 · #3 15th August 2007, 02:02 PM

thanks! i've booted into rescue mode from my installation CD, and i can access my files... problem is, how do i get them off now?

i have a USB key, but where does that mount? i don't see any entries under /mnt/sysimage, or /mnt..