boot with dirty filesystem?

[doug at allensystemconsultants.com]

Fred,

> You don't need to mount /usr to copy /etc. Boot the system
> single-user. 
> Mount a floppy on /mnt. cp -R /etc /mnt. Halt the system and pull
the 
> floppy.

Ok, this makes sense.  I also have data (queued email) I'd like to
recover on /var, but it doesn't come up reliably.  I think I'm going
to take what I can get though at this point.  I'll re-enter the
approx. 1000 users, get mail running again, and then worry about
trying to recover the spooled messages that some of these people have
let sit all summer.

Thanks to all who made suggestions.

Doug Allen

Doug Allen
Allen System Consultants