Whole system is read only

Question

My whole system is read-only so I can't even connect to WiFi (needs authentication).

So I went into the terminal:

sudo su
nautilus

It sat there for about 20 seconds with no output then it had a bunch of errors then nautilus started.

I used that to go into /usr/shared/applications (or whatever) to launch "Disks" and it says nothing about being read-only.

So Im running on the terminal now as I can't use anything that writes settings or anything to the HDD.

What happens when you try to write?
– Seth
Jun 20, 2013 at 3:50 — Seth, Jun 20, 2013 at 3:50

cossacksman · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-20 02:23:18Z

1

Try mounting your hard drive in read-write mode; you should probably do this from recovery mode accessed in GRUB and drop to root terminal and use:

sudo mount -o remount,rw /

Exit to recovery menu and resume normal boot, see if that does anything..

answered Jun 20, 2013 at 2:23

cossacksman

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How do i go into recovery mode? Its at the GRUB menu right? cant see the option.
– Obscenity Furr
Jun 20, 2013 at 2:30
Recovery mode is usually underneath the Ubuntu option in GRUB like so
– cossacksman
Jun 20, 2013 at 2:34
so do i just go in there and type that command?
– Obscenity Furr
Jun 20, 2013 at 2:36
In the recovery menu, you'll be presented with this. Hit "Root" and type the mount command, then type exit until you reach that menu again, from there select "resume" and see how your OS is then.
– cossacksman
Jun 20, 2013 at 2:41
it also says there are "errors on /" and the fsck launches automatically on normal boot and says that whaen its suck on the ubuntu logo and i press "Esc"
– Obscenity Furr
Jun 20, 2013 at 3:05

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