> OK, so I go to edit /etc/fstab. Whoops. It is read-only too! OK,
> so I go to unmount / and mount rw. Except... yes, / cannot be
> unmounted because it is busy! OK, so I go to use a livecd to
> edit fstab to remove this fscking ro thing
A quick tip for you, since this bit you: you don't want to umount /. That will do things like remove your access to the very program you need to remount it rw: mount. So, that bit actually saved you. The option you needed was:
# mount -o remount,rw /
This will remount it rw in place. I have had to employ it in quite a few similar "misbehaving drive" situations.
> OK, so I go to edit /etc/fstab. Whoops. It is read-only too! OK,
> so I go to unmount / and mount rw. Except... yes, / cannot be
> unmounted because it is busy! OK, so I go to use a livecd to
> edit fstab to remove this fscking ro thing
A quick tip for you, since this bit you: you don't want to umount /. That will do things like remove your access to the very program you need to remount it rw: mount. So, that bit actually saved you. The option you needed was:
# mount -o remount,rw /
This will remount it rw in place. I have had to employ it in quite a few similar "misbehaving drive" situations.