Mount of filesystem failed?

[Freddyg1912345]

I know there are probably thousands of threads on this but here goes...

I'm running Ubuntu 9.10 on a dell desktop from idk when, its fairly old but regardless it was all running fine until about a week ago I got the infamous:

Mount of filesystem failed.
A maintenance shell will now be started.
Control-D will terminate this shell and start a new one.
admin@ or whatever it is you get the point.

I've been trying all the possible solutions I could find and nothing seems to work. I just want to be able to use this computer. I don't care if I lose files, or have to re-install Ubuntu or any of that, if I can just get the thing running again. I've tried re-installing, and booting from the disc etc. none of which have worked. Basically, I just want to erase Ubuntu and re-install it. Any help on how to do this would be great.

Thanks,
Fred.

[thisjew]

are u sure the drive has not failed? had that happen on an old system awhile back?
try fdisk or cfdisk /dev/sda or what ever your disk is to see if cfdisk can see it....

you stated you don't care if data is lot maybe easier to reinstall.

[Freddyg1912345]

are u sure the drive has not failed? had that happen on an old system awhile back?
try fdisk or cfdisk /dev/sda or what ever your disk is to see if cfdisk can see it....

you stated you don't care if data is lot maybe easier to reinstall.

yeah, I can't even get it reinstall, I'll give what you said a try and see what happens.

[wojox]

You should be in Root.
Just execute this command

fsck

Yes that's all. After this command it will ask you to auto-fix file-system problems. Give "yes or y" . And then it will say "I finished my job, restart computer"
type

sudo shutdown -r now

And it is finished.
I hope it solves your problem too.