TECRA_A9-S9017 -- /usr/src/UPDATING -- Machine is down.

[freebsd_user at guice.ath.cx]

On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 08:10:24PM +0000, Christopher Joyner wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 8:09 PM, Christopher Joyner <
> chris29wjoyner at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 7:27 PM, <freebsd_user at guice.ath.cx> wrote:
> >
> >> On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 10:04:09AM -0400, David Gurvich wrote:
> >> > Are you sure you've updated all of /etc, particularly the login?
> >> Initially "no" we didn't; because the plan was to do: 4.x -- 5.5 -- 6.3.
> >> However, once the machine failed to boot in to multi-user mode, we
> >> revisited mergemaster and installed all the newer versions of /etc/*; we
> >> are still left with only being able to boot in to single-user mode and
> >> 'not' multi-user mode.
> >>
> >
> > I had a certain problem not to long ago, and running sysinstall in
> > single-user mode, than installing the base installation of the system, that
> > fixed my problem.
> > Do you think installing the base from sysinstall could fix this?

Already tried that.  We keep getting messages of "not being able to find
the files for bin even though we type in the direct URL of the ftp://
that houses the archived versions 4.x to 5.x of freebsd, but, it
(sysinstall and friends) is able to find the balance of the files; man
apges, docs, etc ...  We have no interest in save this UPGRADE.  We just
want to be able to boot in to multi-user mode in order to get some files
that dump, for some reason or another, was unable to get on a level 0 or
9.

On the other hand, if we can find another network, we'll try and
configure the box for LAN access (single-user) and scp what we need,
thereafter doing a fresh 'Dangerously Dedicated' install.  That is, if
we can't get this getty issue temporarily repaired.

Your thoughts ... ? 

> >
> 
> I wanted to add, it would probably delete all your configuration files, such
> as your groups and users.  Which is why I did it.

For completness, we aren't interested in saving this install, just the
files that our dump 0 and 9 failed to get.  There is a temp laptop
holding on until we can get this machine back online with a fresh
install.

Thank you for your replies.