Strange and mysterious Linux crash

VMWare has to be run as root and it was running at the time. AIM also
runs as root, I believe. The partition table is fine. It's just that
several important directories are now replaced with files. And without
/bin/init, I obviously can't boot this box unless I use a boot floppy/CD.
~M


On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, KevinO wrote:

> Does VMWare have to be run as root ? Was it at the time ? Was AOL I.M. running
> as root then ?
>
> (I'm taking stabs in the dark and being cynical as usual ...)
>
> Are you indicating that your partition table is now messed up on this HD ?
>
> Matt Alexander wrote:
> > So my Linux box just locked up. I was running VMWare, AIM, Konq, KMail,
> > and quite a few Konsole sessions. I couldn't kill X. So, I grudgingly
> > rebooted, but I got a message about a kernel panic and not finding init.
> > Odd. So I booted from a floppy and mounted my filesystem. Here's what I
> > found:
> >
> > /bin, /lib, and /opt are no longer directories. /bin is now a copy of my
> > passwd file. /lib is now a copy of my group file. And /opt is another
> > copy of my passwd file. /usr/local/lib is now a copy of something that
> > looks like a sound config file, with entries like "synth:64:64:R" and
> > "pcm:64:64:P".
> >
> > SoooooooOOOOooOOOOoOOOoo... what the heck happened? Any guesses?
> > Thanks,
> > ~M
> >
> >
> > ________________________________________________
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>
>
>
> --
> Kevin O'Connor
>
> "People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun ...
>
> The GNU Manifesto - Copyright (C) 1985, 1993 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
>
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