OK, first the problem: every so often (usually at a scheduled fsck) the HD install of 3.1 decides to mount /dev/null as read only. (I've no idea why: it seems that something is arbitarily setting the permissions to paranoid).

Sometimes I've been able to get out of this by logging on as root and simply resetting the permissions. This time, I'm doomed: post fsck I get a bash prompt with:

bash: /dev/null is read only

repeated umpteen times. I can't even get a shell or a login -- it won't accept input. It looks like the only way back (I can't fsck from my SuSE as ef2fs is an earlier version) is to somehow do it from the CD. But I get the message:

the filesystem must be mounted read/write (not a great idea when running fsck!) or you must be root.

Ideas, please!