System Recovery in Ubuntu after a configuration file change

I modified xorg.conf file to remove synaptics driver from starting up (before modifying any file , it is a good idea to save the original as *.original file, in this case save the xorg.conf to xorg.conf.original). However, after this change the xserver wasn’t starting. To fix this, I had to boot the laptop using the kbuntu cdrom and mount the harddisk. Once mounted I was able to access the /etc/ directory and copied the original xorg.conf file to replace the file I modified. Here are the steps:

1. Boot using kbuntu live cdrom.
2. Mount the hard disk: The primary ide drive is always hda1.
#mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/harddisk
3. Change to /mnt/harddisk and access the /etc/X11 directory.
4. Copy the xorg.conf.original file to xorg.conf.
5. Reboot the system.

Now the system should be up and running.

Last Updated on September 6, 2006 by SK

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