[mythtv-users] OT: SATA errors

[Patrick Mansfield]

On Thu, Jul 09, 2009 at 08:53:28PM -0400, Harry Devine wrote:

> 5) I put the HDs back into the Myth box and when I put, I get the  
> following errors (not exact as some scroll by too quickly, but I booted  
> a few times to jot as many down as I could):
>
> chown: invalid user: `syslog:adm`
> user syslog does not exist, aborting
>
> Doing Wacom setup...
> Starting Kernel log daemon
> chown: invalid user: `klog:klog`
> start-stop-daemon: user `klog` does not exist
>
> chown: invalid user: `messagebus`
> * Starting Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD Daemon avahi-daemon
> Timeout reached while waiting for return value
> Could not receive return value from daemon process

I had something like that some time ago - I had modified /etc/passwd, and
for some reason (that I can't recall, I might have done an unclean
shutdown, or even have been booted from a recovery CD) the machine crashed
almost immediately after that. On reboot, the passwd file was gone or
corrupt. Ick!

> Sooooooooooo: Is the problem with my Motherboard?  Or did something go
> horribly wrong and make some key system files corrupt?  Can I some how
> boot to the rescue mode on the LiveCD and repair them?  Maybe grub got
> corrupted somehow?

Anyway, try booting to runlevel 1 or from a live/recovery CD and check on
the state of your /etc/passwd, /etc/group, and other files. I'm not sure
how you can properly recover them without backups, you might be able to
copy over the boot CD's passwd file as a basis if it is close to your
original.

There is a good chance other files are missing or corrupt though, good
luck :-(

-- Patrick Mansfield