A different Linux boot error

[Chaotic42]

Ok, everything is working except for one thing. When I use the 2.6.5 kernel, Linux hangs when initializing my WD 80GB SE hard drive. The 2.2.19 kernel that comes with my Debian CDs and an old 2.4.21 kernel have no problems with it. Neither does Windows.

Any thoughts?

 

[drag]

Anything weird happen lately? Like a power outage or whatnot?

You can boot up and force e2fsck to scan it.

Sda2 means that it's a scsi drive. Your using a scsi drive, right?

Is the /etc/fstab pointing to the right drive/partition?

Maybe try a different kernel version if you have one aviable to boot off of...


Maybe there is a kernel bug with the controller... try turning off DMA (if your using something like scsi-ide or whatnot) access and see if that helps...

I think that the easiest answer would be a kernel driver issue with your harddrive controllers. Can you use a cdrom "live linux" disk (ala knoppix) and scan it and mount it ok that way?

 

[Chaotic42]

Well, my PSU and motherboard fried each other.

My Windows partition doesn't seem to be doing any better. I'm on the Debian install CDs right now, but they seem to have problems with large files. Yeah, my root partition is /dev/sda2, and fstab is pointing to the correct place.

This error happens after all of the drivers intialize the hardware, then it just kernel panics.

I may just have to reinstall, but I'd hate to do that. Especially since I'm going to have to get a wireless network card and I really don't know if it will work well with the 2.2.19 kernel that comes with my CDs.

 

[Chaotic42]

Now Linux will boot, but it just hangs at "starting kernel log daemon: klogd".

:sigh:

 

[Chaotic42]

Bump

 

[lowpost]

what distro? Did you configure the kernel and compile it? If so, did you enable the correct IDE driver and enable the correct file systems. Build these in and don't make them modules.

 

[drag]

Well, my PSU and motherboard fried each other.

That sucks.

Do you think that it corrupted your harddrive?

Try booting up with the install cds/rescue cd and seeing if you can go to the command line and then mount the partitions and such.

Try getting something like the trinity rescue disk or maybe knoppix cd. The main reason I say trinity is that it's only a 30meg download not a entire 700+meg iso image so it won't take long to download and burn it to disk.

Then run fsck on the partitions to see if they can fix anything. Hopefully trinity has good drivers for your scsi stuff.

 

[Chaotic42]

I got it to work, sort of.

It's very slow when initializing devices. It freezes for minutes at a time, sometimes pressing CTRL-C works.

It's Debian testing, which could explain it, but I haven't upgraded in a while and didn't have problems before.

Maybe I need to order the latest Debian stable CDs (with WLAN support) and start over.

 

[drag]

upgrade to debian unstable.

Debian testing is mostly for developers. It's were the packages slated for the next OS are kept in limbo. Right now the next OS is nearly put together so it works. Actually unstable is more stable then testing as far as reliability is concerned.

If you want to use testing, learn how to make it a hibred between testing and unstable, that way if a package isn't aviable in testing then it will install from unstable.

Try upgrading to the latest kernel, too. Right now I think it's 2.4.26-1-whatever. Could be that the kernel itself was damaged during the hardware problems...

Also should have the latest wireless drivers, too. If it's a prism2 chipset they have a seperate package for that, although you may still have to install the firmware stuff seperate. They also have a pre-compiled nvidia version package for that kernel, too.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: drag
upgrade to debian unstable.

Debian testing is mostly for developers. It's were the packages slated for the next OS are kept in limbo. Right now the next OS is nearly put together so it works. Actually unstable is more stable then testing as far as reliability is concerned.

If you want to use testing, learn how to make it a hibred between testing and unstable, that way if a package isn't aviable in testing then it will install from unstable.

Try upgrading to the latest kernel, too. Right now I think it's 2.4.26-1-whatever. Could be that the kernel itself was damaged during the hardware problems...

Also should have the latest wireless drivers, too. If it's a prism2 chipset they have a seperate package for that, although you may still have to install the firmware stuff seperate. They also have a pre-compiled nvidia version package for that kernel, too.

I've been using testing for years and years now.

 

[Chaotic42]

Ok, it's a keyboard issue.

Thanks everyone!

 

[TonyRic]

OMG after all of that? How did you come to the conclusion that it was the keyboard. Other than just swapping it out, what led you to it?