From owner-freebsd-questions  Tue Mar  4 17:12:01 1997
Return-Path: <owner-questions>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA02286
          for questions-outgoing; Tue, 4 Mar 1997 17:12:01 -0800 (PST)
Received: from mtigwc02.worldnet.att.net (mailhost.worldnet.att.net [204.127.131.34])
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA02279
          for <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>; Tue, 4 Mar 1997 17:11:58 -0800 (PST)
Received: from LOCALNAME ([207.116.69.6]) by mtigwc02.worldnet.att.net
          (post.office MTA v2.0 0613 ) with SMTP id AAA10266
          for <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>;
          Wed, 5 Mar 1997 01:11:24 +0000
Message-ID: <331CD5F0.2A42@worldnet.att.net>
Date: Tue, 04 Mar 1997 18:09:52 -0800
From: "Douglas C. Garrick" <douggarrick@worldnet.att.net>
X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0C-WorldNet  (Win16; I)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: bad trouble with devices
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

I am still trying to recover from the crash caused by the errors in
sysconfig and ttys.   

What happened was, when i had to pull an emergency shutdown i damaged
the file system.  when i finally got everything put back together where
the system would boot i needed to fsck all the file systems.  Well i
booted from a spare drive with a root file system on it and fscked the
original root file system.  Well i apparently answered yes to some
questions that i should have said no to because i have some /dev device
with absurd attributes like owner = 1982437654 group = 4887652399 and
major minor #s that are just as absurd.  

The big problem is that i can't remove those files (specifically ptyp4
and ptypf. In X i 'can't find available ptys for child process' but
there are devices available after the absurd one's.  It almost seems
like the parent process won't look past those bad devices.  

I am right about that?  What can I do to remove these files? I have
tried to re MAKEDEV the ptys and it seems to work, at least it doesn't
complain.  I thought i would try to outsmart it and create users/groups
with the names listed by ls -al but the names are invalid due to
length.  

I think i need professional help :-)  (read into that what you will.)

thanks in advance.

Doug Garrick
Bridger Coal Company 
Rock Springs, Wyoming