[Alan]

So for months I've been having issues with my laptop. Right now I'm only able to use the laptop by running it off a live disc of Linux Mint 6 Xfce. I have discovered something odd when mucking around with Gimp: my HD actually shows up as /media/disk/ whenever I use the open/save dialogs in Gimp, and afterward I can access the files from it like nothing is wrong. But I still can't boot from it.

This is a cut from what shows up on the screen when it tries to load:

mount: mounting /dev/sda1 on /root failed: Invalid argument
mount: mounting /root/dev on /dev/.static/dev failed: No such file or directory
mount: mounting /sys on /root/sys failed: No such file or directory
mount: mounting /proc on /root/proc failed: No such file or directory
Target filesystem doesn't have /sbin/init.
No init found.

There was some other stuff, but this looked most important from what it showed on the screen. From what I gather, this is output from BusyBox v1.10.2.

I'm hoping this is a software issue as I've done research and found similar cases where it could be resolved, but they usually revolve around situations where there's a dual boot. This hard drive is not dual booted and has never even had Windows installed on it in the past.

So... help? This is also impacting my ability to do freelance work (which, given current economic circumstances, I really need), as I've gotten several requests for it but I've had to turn it down.

[Plagman]

Did you add an external HDD/enable an optical drive or did anything that could have changed the disk order? It's possible your Linux installation just got tries to access your main HDD at a different location. If everything fails, you should be able to install the same system over your existing partition, reclaiming all your personal settings and data.

[Alan]

I did try changing it in BIOS to check the disc drive then USB drives before the HD (I have to say that attempting to put Linux on a flash drive had disappointing results), but that was after I started having the issue. But you say I should be able to reinstall the system without losing my documents? I've got some web projects on the HD that took me months to develop, so you can probably understand why I'm somewhat paranoid of it.

Where would I look to see if BusyBox is trying to load it improperly? It makes sense, since it's complaining about an "invalid argument."

[Plagman]

Why can't you back up your vital stuff to a thumb drive if you say you can access your hard disk drive through /media/disk with the LiveCD you're using as a workaround? Your distribution ought to have a way to install itself in the existing partitions without formatting. If you're careful to select that option and copy the full contents of your home directory over, you should your data and settings back.

[Alan]

The USB flash drive I have is too small. I do have an external hard drive, but I can't write to it because it's NTFS. I'd format that but there's other backed-up material on there.

Also, when loading the Install app from the live disc desktop, it appears it can't find a device to install on.

[Plagman]

I believe the ntfs-3g driver has been deemed mature enough to fully support (and presumably without destroying any data) writing to NTFS partitions. I've used it this way for a long while and never had any problems. The LiveCD you're using is probably too old.

Anyway, if the install CD doesn't find any hard drives something deeper is going wrong with your HDD configuration. With that much information I can't really suggest anything except trying the most recent Ubuntu/whatever install CD you can find and looking at what it says then.

[Alan]

Well I'm using Linux Mint 6 which I believe is using Ubuntu 8.10 as a base. I can probably get hold of a computer to burn a copy of Mint 7 but I'm not going to hold my breath on that just yet.