Hi folks Having been in hospital for a while i updated this system a couple of days ago and am having some strange problems If i run pacman -Syu i get 7-of-9:/ # pacman -Syu :: Synchronising package databases... error: failed to update core (unable to lock database) error: failed to update extra (unable to lock database) error: failed to update community (unable to lock database) error: failed to update multilib (unable to lock database) error: failed to synchronise any databases error: failed to init transaction (unable to lock database) error: could not lock database: Read-only file system mount gives 7-of-9:/ # mount proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime) sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime) dev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=1990844k,nr_inodes=497711,mode=755) run on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,mode=755) /dev/sda3 on / type ext4 (ro,relatime,data=ordered) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000) shm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime) tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime) /dev/sda4 on /home type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered) /dev/sda1 on /boot type ext2 (rw,relatime) binfmt on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,relatime) gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/pete/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=100) contents of /etc/fstab # # /etc/fstab: static file system information # # <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> tmpfs /tmp tmpfs nodev,nosuid 0 0 UUID=34fd95b0-a146-47a8-8fa4-78dcedd8c127 /home ext4 defaults 0 1 UUID=49c2a61c-19e8-4f45-b8ef-72507d60ee06 /boot ext2 defaults 0 1 UUID=a1439104-fcea-4c90-b0fb-2340154a9eae / ext4 defaults 0 1 UUID=b25ccd70-a144-40af-8126-303d7333cdb4 swap swap defaults 0 0 7-of-9:/ # uname -a Linux 7-of-9 3.5.3-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Aug 26 09:14:51 CEST 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux Hints please where to look i have compared this system to the laptop and can see no major differences i have checked the drive it reports all ok Pete . -- Linux 7-of-9 3.5.3-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Aug 26 09:14:51 CEST 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux