[Samba] Couldn't read /dev/null

[Dale Mirenda]

I'm migrating an NT fileserver to Samba 2.2.3a on SuSE 8.0. Until yesterday,
the Samba server had running perfectly for several weeks. Yesterday
afternoon, I performed a normal shutdown of the Linux box. When I restarted
the system, the Samba server, Webmin, netatalk, etc. did not start. I
checked the login screen and found the phrase "/dev/null: Read-only file
system" at the end of every line as the system attempted to start processes.
When I log in to the console, it reports "bash: /dev/null: Read-only file
system." Also I saw "ERROR: cannot fsck because root is read-only."

If this is a filesystem corruption problem, it is my first. Proceeding on
that assumption, I've been researching recovery methods all day but I cannot
find any example that refers to this "/dev/null" message. That makes me
nervous. Eventually I attempted to run e2fsck manually by starting from the
SuSE CD but I'm possibly a bit confused by the instructions on how to access
the normal filesystem from the rescue system. Whatever the reason, I have
not been able to figure out how to access

I was able to determine that all of my files are still where they are
supposed to be, so at this point I seem to have not lost any unique data.
I'm afraid that if I go any further without competent advice, that happy
situation will evaporate. Is there some easy way out of this "/dev/null:
Read-only" situation that I just don't know about? If not, can someone
explain what it means and point me in the right direction towards finding a
repair procedure?

Dale Mirenda