Fatal Trap 12 problem after mergemaster crash

[CB]

Hi Joe

Your help much appreciated.

You suggested:
>At the boot loader prompt, the one that counts down in seconds, hit
>any key to break into the load process and type 'boot -s'. This
>will book the kernel but remain in single user mode. You should
>end up with a request to enter the name of the shell that you want.
>Hit carriage return and accept the default.

I can break into the load process fine, but when I type "boot -s" it says:
can't load kernel
can't load kernel.old

then drops me back to the same "ok" prompt.

if I try typing "boot -s kernel.prev" or "boot -s kernel.GENERIC" I get the
same messages:
can't load kernel
can't load kernel.old

and back to the "ok" prompt;

yet typing "boot kernel.prev" (omitting the -s) takes me all the way through
the boot process (eventually) right up to where it should give me the login
prompt, but I get the "Fatal trap 12" thing as described in my last message.

I've tried booting from 4.1 floppies and using "fixit.flp" from sysinstall
and I can get to a shell prompt that way - either a "holographic shell" or
the "Fixit#" prompt - but if I try doing "fsck -p" it comes back with:

fstab: /etc/fstab:0 No such file or directory
can't open checklist file: /etc/fstab

It's the same from both the holographic shell and the fixit prompt. Other
commands like "ls" don't work - just an echo of the command and "not
found" - although "pwd" tells me I'm in /

It tells me the fixit floppy is mounted on /mnt2, and I can do "cd /mnt2"
(without it echoing what I type to the screen) and then "pwd" tells me I got
there, but I can't use "ls" to see what is available to me there.

'Tis definitely a puzzle to me this one, though I'm sure there must be some
way out of it!

Many thanks for all your help.
Charles




----- Original Message -----
From: Josef Karthauser <joe at tao.org.uk>
To: CB <ecliptica.ww at virgin.net>
Cc: <freebsd-users at uk.FreeBSD.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2002 10:42 PM
Subject: Re: Fatal Trap 12 problem after mergemaster crash