Ubuntu: /home doesn't mount at boot anymore

Yesterday was a usual day: I went to work, turned on my laptop, typed in my password and Ubuntu rejected to mount /home. Err...?

After fiddling around with /etc/fstab and the like my boss suggested to try fsck.

sudo fsck /dev/sda5

"Fix file Y?", yes. "Fix file Z", yes. This went on for a few dozen files and finally I rebooted my laptop and everything was fine again.

However, beware of this operation! In my case a few installers, like Plants vs. Zombies, went missing ( :( !). If you care about all your files, do a backup first.

Oh, I hear some of you asking "How the hell is that possible when the /home partition isn't mounted?"...

sudo mkdir /media/home; sudo mount /dev/sdaX /media/home

And how to find out the partition's number (sdaX)? Either use gparted or sudo fdisk -l

Oh, and if you aren't able to start your terminal with a keyboard shortcut (like CTRL+ALT+T) press CTRL+ALT+F1 and you're in. Good luck!