[NTLUG:Discuss] Linux box crash

[Wayne Dahl]

Hi guys,

Here's the scenario.  My dad comes down from Oklahoma for Christmas and I 
set him up a user account to play all the various card games that comes 
with RH 7.3.  While I'm at work, he gets himself into a screen where he has 
no task bar, doesn't know how to open a terminal window and manually shut 
down, so he just turns off the box.  Shouldn't be a problem, since I'm 
running an EXT3 filesystem, but wait!  There's more!

When I went to start up this box, as it was checking the filesystems, it 
gets an error...

"/usr contains a filesystem with errors, check forced."

It continues checking the rest of the filesystems and everything checks 
clean except /usr...then I get this message.

"/usr: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.  (i.e., without -a or 
-p options)
*** An error occurred during the file system check.
*** Dropping you to a shell; the system will reboot
*** When you leave the shell
Give root password for maintenance (or type Control-D for normal startup):"

After typing in the root password, I get this...

"bash id: command not found
  bash id: command not found
  bash id: command not found
[: too many arguments
(Repair filesystem) 1 #"

Ok...now, at this point, I attempt to run fsck this way....

"(Repair filesystem) 1 # fsck -t ext3 (and I think this is where I'm going 
wrong) /dev/hda5"

fsck can't find an error there...soooo....I'm not sure which partition I 
put /usr in (I thought it was in /dev/hda5) and I can't get the box to 
completely boot up to tell me.  I have separate partitions for all the 
major filesystems on the box...i.e. /, /boot, /usr, /home, etc...all have 
their own partitions.

So, now my question is...what in the world could my dad have done from a 
user account that could screw up this box this badly and what do I do about it?

HELP!!

Thanks,

Wayne