On 09/08/2012 06:49 AM, Dirk Brandherm wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I hope that someone here will be able to help me with the following. I
>
> recently tried to install a Retrospect backup client to my Scientific Lin
> ux
> 6.1 system. The installation hung, and the next time I tried to boot the
>
> system, it refused to start and hung at this point:
>
>
> Mounting local filesystems: error writing /etc/mtab.tmp: No space left on
>
> device
> error writing /etc/mtab.tmp: No space left on device
> error writing /etc/mtab.tmp: No space left on device
> mount: devpts already mounted or /dev/pts busy
> mount: sysfs already mounted or /sys busy [FAILED]
> Enabling local filesystem quotas: [OK]
> Enabling /etc/fstab swaps: [OK]
> Entering non interactive startup
> Calling the system activity data collector (sadc):
> Starting monitoring for VG vg_gapqub01: 3 logical volume(s) in volume
> group“vg_gapqub01" monitored  [ok]
> dkms: running auto installation service for kernel 2.6.32-279.5.1el6.x86_
> 64
>
> And at that point the boot routine stops. I have tried to reboot several
>
> times. The result is always the same. The boot process never proceeds
> beyond this point.
>
> I have no clue what happened here. The hard disc certainly should not be
>
> full at this stage. I even booted Scientific Linux from the Live CD to fr
> ee
> some space deleting a number of old files, but this had no effect. I am a
> t
> a loss here. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Just off the top of my head...
Did the Retrospect installation procedure alter /etc/fstab ? It may be 
useful to boot from a liveCD/USB and check what is in /etc/fstab . If 
the installer did touch /etc/fstab, check if the installer backed it up 
(probably something like /etc/fstab.bak or /etc/fstab.retrospect.bak) 
and diff the two to see what changed.