1:14 p.m.
If I power down my laptop via the usual KStart->Shutdown means, it can
take up to 4 restart attempts before it fully boots.
It has no problem launching grub and the kernel selection screen. That
it does reliably every time. After that, there are issues.
Twice I will get a back screen with a flashing cursor. Then I will get
an ehci -19 error. Then it will boot properly.
My fscks are fine. I had a block error once, about two weeks ago, but
that was with an older F12 kernel after completely crashing during a
resume from suspend to RAM.
Is anyone else experiencing a problem booting ? Does this sound like a
kernel problem or is my hard drive failing ?
Thanks
$ uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.31.9-174.fc12.i686.PAE #1 SMP Mon Dec 21
06:04:56 UTC 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
4:23 p.m.
2010/1/6 Linuxguy123 <linuxguy123(a)gmail.com>:
Is anyone else experiencing a problem booting ? Does this sound like a
kernel problem or is my hard drive failing ?
If your drive and BIOS supports S.M.A.R.T, then gnome-disk-utility
(palimpsest) will tell you the status of your drive..
-c
10:45 p.m.
> Is anyone else experiencing a problem booting ? Does this sound
like a
> kernel problem or is my hard drive failing ?
From the error message, possibly there is a problem with your SATA
controller, or with your SATA cables.
SATA cables are pretty cheap. Get some new ones and replace them all.
If that doesn't fix your problem, while SATA controllers aren't as
cheap as cables, they are at least affordable. Buy a new SATA
controller, install it and attach your drive to it. If your old SATA
controller is removable (ie not integrated with the motherboard), then
also remove it.
And what the other guy said - check your drive health with S.M.A.R.T.
Also, all the drive manufacturers offer free downloads of drive
testing utilities. These are image files that generate boot floppies
or CD-ROMs. Download the utility for your drive, make the boot disk,
boot off it, and run the non-destructive tests.
This can be valuable because vendors often add proprietary test code,
that only their own diagnostic tools know how to run. There is a
possibility that this will detect a drive failure that S.M.A.R.T. may
not yet know about.
But First...
BACK UP ALL YOUR DATA! RIGHT NOW!
There is a clock ticking, you see. Can you hear it? "Tick, Tick, Tick."
Don Quixote
--
Don Quixote de la Mancha
quixote(a)dulcineatech.com
http://www.dulcineatech.com
Dulcinea Technologies Corporation: Software of Elegance and Beauty.
9:35 a.m.
On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 09:23 +1100, Chris Smart wrote:
2010/1/6 Linuxguy123 <linuxguy123(a)gmail.com>:
>
> Is anyone else experiencing a problem booting ? Does this sound like a
> kernel problem or is my hard drive failing ?
If your drive and BIOS supports S.M.A.R.T, then gnome-disk-utility
(palimpsest) will tell you the status of your drive..
I can't seem to find this utility in Fedora. Can someone verify its
spelling/existence ?
Thanks
9:48 a.m.
On Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:35:43 -0700, Linuxguy123 wrote:
On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 09:23 +1100, Chris Smart wrote:
> 2010/1/6 Linuxguy123 <linuxguy123(a)gmail.com>:
> >
> > Is anyone else experiencing a problem booting ? Does this sound like a
> > kernel problem or is my hard drive failing ?
>
> If your drive and BIOS supports S.M.A.R.T, then gnome-disk-utility
> (palimpsest) will tell you the status of your drive..
I can't seem to find this utility in Fedora. Can someone verify its
spelling/existence ?
You can, too: yum search palim
9:58 a.m.
Around 03:35pm on Wednesday, January 06, 2010 (UK time), Linuxguy123 scrawled:
On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 09:23 +1100, Chris Smart wrote:
> 2010/1/6 Linuxguy123 <linuxguy123(a)gmail.com>:
> >
> > Is anyone else experiencing a problem booting ? Does this sound like a
> > kernel problem or is my hard drive failing ?
>
> If your drive and BIOS supports S.M.A.R.T, then gnome-disk-utility
> (palimpsest) will tell you the status of your drive..
I can't seem to find this utility in Fedora. Can someone verify its
spelling/existence ?
Its a gui utility.
$ palimpsest
gnome-disk-utility is the package name.
$ yum provides */palimpsest
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
updates/filelists_db | 4.7 MB
01:56
gnome-disk-utility-2.28.1-1.fc12.x86_64 : Disk management application
Repo : fedora
Matched from:
Filename : /usr/share/gnome/help/palimpsest
Filename : /usr/share/omf/palimpsest
Filename : /usr/bin/palimpsest
gnome-disk-utility-2.28.1-1.fc12.x86_64 : Disk management application
Repo : installed
Matched from:
Filename : /usr/bin/palimpsest
Steve
--
(o< www.stevesearle.com
//\ Powered by Fedora
V_/_ No MS products were used in the creation of this message
15:54:58 up 32 days, 15:21, 1 user, load average: 0.02, 0.05, 0.06
10:02 a.m.
On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 16:48 +0100, Michael Schwendt wrote:
On Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:35:43 -0700, Linuxguy123 wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 09:23 +1100, Chris Smart wrote:
> > 2010/1/6 Linuxguy123 <linuxguy123(a)gmail.com>:
> > >
> > > Is anyone else experiencing a problem booting ? Does this sound like a
> > > kernel problem or is my hard drive failing ?
> >
> > If your drive and BIOS supports S.M.A.R.T, then gnome-disk-utility
> > (palimpsest) will tell you the status of your drive..
>
> I can't seem to find this utility in Fedora. Can someone verify its
> spelling/existence ?
You can, too: yum search palim
Found it and installed it. Its a very useful application.
It was part of the gnome-disk-utility package. I missed that part in
the op.
My disk is SMART enabled and the utility reports that it is healthy. I
have a booting problem to look into.
Thanks for the help.
10:04 a.m.
On 01/06/2010 10:35 AM, Linuxguy123 wrote:
On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 09:23 +1100, Chris Smart wrote:
> 2010/1/6 Linuxguy123 <linuxguy123(a)gmail.com>:
>>
>> Is anyone else experiencing a problem booting ? Does this sound like a
>> kernel problem or is my hard drive failing ?
>
> If your drive and BIOS supports S.M.A.R.T, then gnome-disk-utility
> (palimpsest) will tell you the status of your drive..
I can't seem to find this utility in Fedora. Can someone verify its
spelling/existence ?
yum search palimpsest
Thanks
--
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome(a)rcn.com
cummings(a)kjchome.homeip.net
cummings(a)kjc386.framingham.ma.us
Registered Linux User #1232 (http://counter.li.org)
10:31 a.m.
If I power down my laptop via the usual KStart->Shutdown means, it
can
take up to 4 restart attempts before it fully boots.
That sounds like wonky hardware
It has no problem launching grub and the kernel selection screen.
That
it does reliably every time. After that, there are issues.
If it launches grub the disk is fine (Grub is loaded off the disk) and I
assume the laptop has one disk.
Twice I will get a back screen with a flashing cursor. Then I will
get
an ehci -19 error. Then it will boot properly.
The EHCI error is from USB so perhaps points to a USB problem.
Is anyone else experiencing a problem booting ? Does this sound
like a
kernel problem or is my hard drive failing ?
If a soft reboot fails but a hard reboot (reset button held down) works
I'd suspect its something hardware related not getting properly
shutdown/restarting etc.
For diagnostics boot with "verbose norhgb" that should spew lots of
messages and not hide it all with the graphical stuff - meaning you can
actually see what is going on. See where that hangs.
You could also see if reboot=acpi helps. That changes the way the reboot
is done and might be better for modern machines. Len Brown is currently
collecting data on making this a default so your box may be a useful data
point.
4:33 p.m.
2010/1/6 Linuxguy123 <linuxguy123(a)gmail.com>:
If I power down my laptop via the usual KStart->Shutdown means, it
can
take up to 4 restart attempts before it fully boots.
It has no problem launching grub and the kernel selection screen. That
it does reliably every time. After that, there are issues.
Just a wild stab in the dark, but you don't have a USB drive or memory
stick plugged in while trying to boot, do you?
-c
7:53 p.m.
Update
I cloned the original 160 GB hard drive onto a new 160 GB SSD. The
booting problem is even worse now. It used to take 2-6 tries to get my
laptop to boot. Now it takes about 10.
The SMART tests from the original 160 GB drive all came back fine. So
did all the fscks.
I've run the bios memory check and it comes back fine too.
The boot problem also occurred when I booted the ubuntu 10.4 live CD.
Any ideas ?
Thanks
On Tue, 2010-01-05 at 12:14 -0700, Linuxguy123 wrote:
If I power down my laptop via the usual KStart->Shutdown means, it
can
take up to 4 restart attempts before it fully boots.
It has no problem launching grub and the kernel selection screen. That
it does reliably every time. After that, there are issues.
Twice I will get a back screen with a flashing cursor. Then I will get
an ehci -19 error. Then it will boot properly.
My fscks are fine. I had a block error once, about two weeks ago, but
that was with an older F12 kernel after completely crashing during a
resume from suspend to RAM.
Is anyone else experiencing a problem booting ? Does this sound like a
kernel problem or is my hard drive failing ?
Thanks
$ uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.31.9-174.fc12.i686.PAE #1 SMP Mon Dec 21
06:04:56 UTC 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
8:53 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 5:53 PM, Linuxguy123 <linuxguy123(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Update
I cloned the original 160 GB hard drive onto a new 160 GB SSD. The
booting problem is even worse now. It used to take 2-6 tries to get my
laptop to boot. Now it takes about 10.
The SMART tests from the original 160 GB drive all came back fine. So
did all the fscks.
I've run the bios memory check and it comes back fine too.
The boot problem also occurred when I booted the ubuntu 10.4 live CD.
Any ideas ?
Unless the BIOS memory test is exhaustive rather than quick, run
memtest. However, it could also be a motherboard problem or problem
with seating of the internal boards in the machine.
Peter
9 p.m.
On 06/24/2010 05:53 PM, Linuxguy123 was caught red-handed while writing::
Update
I cloned the original 160 GB hard drive onto a new 160 GB SSD. The
booting problem is even worse now. It used to take 2-6 tries to get my
laptop to boot. Now it takes about 10.
The SMART tests from the original 160 GB drive all came back fine. So
did all the fscks.
I've run the bios memory check and it comes back fine too.
The boot problem also occurred when I booted the ubuntu 10.4 live CD.
Any ideas ?
Thanks
On Tue, 2010-01-05 at 12:14 -0700, Linuxguy123 wrote:
> If I power down my laptop via the usual KStart->Shutdown means, it can
> take up to 4 restart attempts before it fully boots.
>
> It has no problem launching grub and the kernel selection screen. That
> it does reliably every time. After that, there are issues.
>
> Twice I will get a back screen with a flashing cursor. Then I will get
> an ehci -19 error. Then it will boot properly.
>
> My fscks are fine. I had a block error once, about two weeks ago, but
> that was with an older F12 kernel after completely crashing during a
> resume from suspend to RAM.
>
> Is anyone else experiencing a problem booting ? Does this sound like a
> kernel problem or is my hard drive failing ?
>
> Thanks
>
> $ uname -a
> Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.31.9-174.fc12.i686.PAE #1 SMP Mon Dec 21
> 06:04:56 UTC 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linu
I think you are having some real HARDWARE problems.
Do you have a standalone CD that does a comprehensive
test of all hardware components present?
9:11 a.m.
On Thu, 2010-06-24 at 18:53 -0700, Peter Langfelder wrote:
On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 5:53 PM, Linuxguy123
<linuxguy123(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Update
>
> I cloned the original 160 GB hard drive onto a new 160 GB SSD. The
> booting problem is even worse now. It used to take 2-6 tries to get my
> laptop to boot. Now it takes about 10.
>
> The SMART tests from the original 160 GB drive all came back fine. So
> did all the fscks.
>
> I've run the bios memory check and it comes back fine too.
>
> The boot problem also occurred when I booted the ubuntu 10.4 live CD.
>
> Any ideas ?
Unless the BIOS memory test is exhaustive rather than quick, run
memtest. However, it could also be a motherboard problem or problem
with seating of the internal boards in the machine.
I ran memtest for 8 hours +. No errors. Interestingly, the memtest CD
boots instantly, every time. This looks like a kernel issue.
1:06 a.m.
On Jun 25, 2010, at 11:11 PM, Linuxguy123 wrote:
On Thu, 2010-06-24 at 18:53 -0700, Peter Langfelder wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 5:53 PM, Linuxguy123
> <linuxguy123(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> Update
>>
>> I cloned the original 160 GB hard drive onto a new 160 GB SSD. The
>> booting problem is even worse now. It used to take 2-6 tries to
>> get my
>> laptop to boot. Now it takes about 10.
>>
>> The SMART tests from the original 160 GB drive all came back
>> fine. So
>> did all the fscks.
>>
>> I've run the bios memory check and it comes back fine too.
>>
>> The boot problem also occurred when I booted the ubuntu 10.4 live
>> CD.
>>
>> Any ideas ?
>
> Unless the BIOS memory test is exhaustive rather than quick, run
> memtest. However, it could also be a motherboard problem or problem
> with seating of the internal boards in the machine.
I ran memtest for 8 hours +. No errors. Interestingly, the
memtest CD
boots instantly, every time. This looks like a kernel issue.
If you hadn't mentioned problems with the CD, I'd be suggesting that
you check whether the old BIOS C:/D: ambiguity were biting you. It
bites me unless I use either labels or UUIDs on all my drives. I'll
go in and switch the /etc/fstab entries from sda1 to sdb1 and re-
boot. Works fine. Power down. Next day I power up and it gets stuck
just where it should be starting to dump out the list of modules
successfully loaded.
If I'm quick with the camera, I can catch a screen telling me it's
having a hard time with a partition, could the partition be zero-
length or something? and then it starts repeating prompts to press
ctl-d to boot to single user, which, apparently because of SELinux,
it isn't allowed to do, then it goes into a prompt loop. And no logs,
again, apparently because of security policies.
Anyway, I thought the drives must be dying (the typical reason
suggested for BIOS toggling C and D), but smartd doesn't tell me
anything either. So I dug up the UUIDs for the partitions and put
those in /etc/fstab instead of /dev/sda1, etc. and it works just fine.
But if you're having problems with the CD, it's hard to see how the
entry in /etc/fstab would cause that.
Joel Rees
8:19 p.m.
On Thu, 2010-06-24 at 19:00 -0700, JD wrote:
I think you are having some real HARDWARE problems.
Do you have a standalone CD that does a comprehensive
test of all hardware components present?
This problem appears to be resolved. It appears to have been a
kernel/software issue. My laptop now boots immediately on the first try
every time.
I have no idea what changed to cause this. All I know is that it boots
reliably now.
Thanks for your suggestions and help.
5037
days inactive
5218
days old
15 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
Alan Cox -
Chris Smart -
Don Quixote de la Manvha -
JD -
Joel Rees -
Kevin Cummings -
linux guy -
Michael Schwendt -
Peter Langfelder -
Steve Searle