Since upgrade, apache 2 stops backtrack from booting

Hello Backtrack users,
I often read through these forums and have learned a lot from you all, now there is something i cannot seem to find via these forums or google and worse i think its probably something quite simple.

I have been happily using and tweaking backtrack 5 for sometime now, i have learned many things about security and linux in general. Curious about upgrading, i eventually did a dist-upgrade. However i seem to have failed to do any of this first.

/etc/init.d/apache2 stop
/etc/init.d/cups stop
/etc/init.d/winbind stop

update-rc.d -f cups remove
update-rc.d -f apache2 remove
update-rc.d -f winbind remove


Now backtrack no longer boots. it hangs at

"starting web server apache2 [OK]"

so my question is, how can i do the above from outside the OS and disable the startup programs that seem to be preventing backtrack from loading. i have no recovery option in grub as i removed them to present a polished look (yeah i know, bad idea)


If this issue has been covered in a previous thread, then i apologise as i have missed it. Please point me in the right direction.

Ok..I do not understand exactly what you did. Did you upgrade and then stop/removed apache2, cups and winbind?...Or you first stoped and removed services, then upgraded..Do not understand...Do you have hdd install ? USB install?...I cannot take guess on this.

Well then, I will concentrate on your last question and "guessing you have a HDD: "how can i do the above from outside the OS and disable the startup programs that seem to be preventing backtrack from loading"...

The grub2 should show a recovery mode option...Use it..It will load up only basic things, the least but necessary to boot the OS....check it..

When removing services from runlevels my friend, this is very important to be aware of this: update-rc is used with "remove" option to erase or remove "service link", but the Service (Apache2) has to be removed FIRST...It is a Concept error..Need to read.

So, when apache is removed/uninstalled first, then script in /etc/init.d/apache2 will be purged too. Then use update-rc to remove LINK to the script already purged or removed or uninstalled.

What you can do in recovery mode is to "update-rc defaults" to create all links removed...The ones that already exists are not touched, the rest is created..See if it works...

If it doesn't work, then uninstall apache2 in recovery mode..Then install it again...

Luck.