Fatal Error preventing boot

[bagel525641]

I'm fairly inexperienced with Linux, and I'm getting an error message preventing me from booting. This is on the LXDE spin of F17 with no major updates applied on an old 32-bit slim WinXp computer from '06.

The error log that shows is photographed here: http://imgur.com/MVq9Cr9

I don't even know if this is a hardware or software issue. The problem occurred after setting the system to hibernate: after waking none of the text displayed correctly and this happened after attempted restart.

I can't even shut off the computer when it's showing this error log.

[jpollard]

It implies the system was not properly shutdown and is likely using an ext2 filesystem (or ext3 without a journal).

The root filesystem on disk needs to be repaired. Now which filesystem that is should be indicated by the message (it looks like it has the label "_Fedora-17-i686-").

To identify which partition that is try running blkid - it should list the labels associated with all partitions, then you can use the device name.

Run "fsck /dev/sd<whatever>" as indicated. It should then repair the filesystem. If you want to let fsck do the best it can without aid, use "fsck -y /dev/sd<whatever>", as that tells fsck to assume a "yes" for any errors it can repair (those without alternatives).

When finished, I would suggest using a filesystem with a journal - such as ext3 (ext3 is backward compatible with ext2, ext4 is upwardly compatible, but you can't go back after creating files on it).

[bagel525641]

The system is using a ext4 filesystem and blkid insists that it is clean, which is confusing.

[jpollard]

blkid doesn't look at the filesystem - just some volumn header information. I would trust fsck and the filesystem itself for that.