Well this just goes from bad to worse. My problem started with an otherwise perfectly good Ubuntu 16.04 install that has been working for a couple of months, aside from broken links on reboot. Following some instructions here: (see Link to (shortcut) is broken after reboot) I decided to try and make sure the drive was mounted on reboot, and edited my fstab file to mount the second hard disk as required (how risky could that be?...)
Now my whole system will not reboot! Apparently the fstab file is now corrupted by the last line I added to include the mounting of the second hard disk. Fortunately a backup file was made of fstab, however I am unable to do anything with it. Although I can boot up using myu ubuntu bootable flash drive and can see both files (fstab and fstab.orig) I am unable to rename the files, remove them, or edit them in any fashion. I presume they are write protected, but can find no way to make them writable.
I have already tried using the GUI (files access) and can see the files, but that's it. Can't edit them in any fashion. Under the permissions it states I am not the owner, so I cannot change permissions. Tried using a terminal window, but if I try to rename the file I get:Bareword "fstab" not allowed while "strict subs" in use at (user-supplied code)
I presume this is also because it is read only. Tried changing permissions using chmod, but I get told:chmod: changing perissions of 'fstab': operation not permitted.
So, what now? And please don't tell me I have to do a full reinstall just because I have a single line of invalid code in this frickin fstab file...