Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!media-lab.media.mit.edu!adam
From: adam@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Adam Glass)
Subject: No login window after "cleaning" disk...
Message-ID: <1991Jun20.134313.18363@news.media.mit.edu>
Summary: Can't login -- machine hozed.
Originator: adam@media-lab.media.mit.edu
Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Distribution: mit
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1991 13:43:13 GMT

Heh.  I was, uh, 'cleaning up' my hard drive last night, and when I
logged out, and later tried to log back in, the following happened:
the password was accepted (i.e., the login window went away), and the
NeXT icon appeared at the top of the dock, but a split second later,
it disappeared, and the login window was presented again (nothing else
appeared on the screen, just the NeXT icon.)

Well, that's odd, I thought, so I rebooted, and brought it up with
'bsd -sx' so I could watch it.  Everything seemed fine.  Except my
drive with the home directories wasn't mounted.  So I fsck'd it --
nothing wrong -- and then mounted it.  I checked /etc/fstab, and it's
listed there, with the right modifiers, so I shrugged and rebooted in
multiuser mode.

This time, I didn't even get a login window.  Just a blank screen.  So
I rebooted with 'bsd -x', so I could watch.  No errors, save for the
following message: "Wed Jun 19 23:24:31 EDT 1991 geidi-prime
WindowServer: Problem starting the NeXTdimension.psdrvr driver.
Continuing."  But we get that error here at work too, and the machines
here boot up fine, so *that*'s not it.

Obviously, it would seem that this problem has something to do with my
housecleaning job last night.  I've restriced distribution to MIT 'cuz
I seem to remember someone posting similar problems to c.s.n before,
and I don't want to spew to the whole net when likely there are people
on campus that know what to do.

(Here are the paths that I 'rm -rf'ed all together:
/NextLibrary/Documentation/[Ariel,Motorola]
/NextLibrary/[References,Literature,Fax,Packages,TeX]
/usr/tex
/usr/lib/emacs/info
/usr/lib/emacs/lock
I don't think I deleted anything, but nonetheless was tempted to, in
the following directories:
/usr/lib/transcript
/usr/lib/NextPrinter
/usr/lib/indexing/files)

Thanks in advance...

Adam, proof yet again that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,
      especially around unix, and *especially* when you're the superuser.
