- Nov 20, 2009
- 8,410
- 1,617
- 136
First, while I do play with a variety of operating systems I do so on separate disks or SSDs. I like to keep things isolated and playing with an OS is easily handled on 120-250GB SSDs these days. I've been running Linux Mint on a 256 GB Samsung SSD for two or three years now, doing the updates when prompted and basically doing not much more in that environment other than surfing, watching videos and occasionally trying out software via the LM S/W Mgr. I have not installed anything in this particular LM environment in about a month, but I'm in it daily. Also, I usually do not let the LM boot for more than 3-4 days at a time because I boot into my Windows 7 Pro SSD, but then power down, flip SSDs and power up again.
Anyway, the LM SSD had been working fine for the past four days and then this evening I powered down for a usual flip into my Windows SSD and then twenty minutes later flipped back to the LM SSD. Initially everything seemed fine, the wallpaper loaded, the only two desktop icons I allow, the screen resolution was correct and the mouse and keyboard seemed dandy. And then about 30 seconds later as I was about to connect my VPN something strange happened. The wallpaper disappeared and a widget box popped up with a bunch of squares instead of characters. The the graphics for the two desktop icons went away leaving a why faceless icon. The pop-up widget seemed to have two buttons but their labels being squares were unknown. I clicked one button and the pop-up went away but no task bar and no response from the LM environment. I let it sit for about five minutes to no other changes before striking the Reset button the PC chassis.
Again LM booted up just fine and this time I qucikly went into the Computer icon, made sure files were there, I even clicked a video and VLC started playing it. That was about 10-15 seconds and when I closed VLC and tried to open an image file was when things went bad leaving me with the exact same thing, wallpaperless desktop, faceless desktop icons, no taskbar and a widget popping up with a missing character set and small squares instead of actual characters. At this time I powered down, pulled the SSD from the PC chassis and put it into a USB docking station. I booted Windows 7, installed Ext2Fsd driver allowing me to read/write to Ext2/3/4 partitions, and I had the Ext2 Volume Manager start its service and assign a volume letter to the Ext2 volume.
I can read documents, view images and videos, etc., from the LM SSD but something has gone catastrophic with the LM operating system. Is there a way to recover from this? I know I could probably just nuke and pave it (e.g. Use SecureErase to wipe and then reinstall LM) but I was hoping maybe something less destructive. Right now I am going to try to use a Samsung utility to see what the SSD's health might be.
Anyway, the LM SSD had been working fine for the past four days and then this evening I powered down for a usual flip into my Windows SSD and then twenty minutes later flipped back to the LM SSD. Initially everything seemed fine, the wallpaper loaded, the only two desktop icons I allow, the screen resolution was correct and the mouse and keyboard seemed dandy. And then about 30 seconds later as I was about to connect my VPN something strange happened. The wallpaper disappeared and a widget box popped up with a bunch of squares instead of characters. The the graphics for the two desktop icons went away leaving a why faceless icon. The pop-up widget seemed to have two buttons but their labels being squares were unknown. I clicked one button and the pop-up went away but no task bar and no response from the LM environment. I let it sit for about five minutes to no other changes before striking the Reset button the PC chassis.
Again LM booted up just fine and this time I qucikly went into the Computer icon, made sure files were there, I even clicked a video and VLC started playing it. That was about 10-15 seconds and when I closed VLC and tried to open an image file was when things went bad leaving me with the exact same thing, wallpaperless desktop, faceless desktop icons, no taskbar and a widget popping up with a missing character set and small squares instead of actual characters. At this time I powered down, pulled the SSD from the PC chassis and put it into a USB docking station. I booted Windows 7, installed Ext2Fsd driver allowing me to read/write to Ext2/3/4 partitions, and I had the Ext2 Volume Manager start its service and assign a volume letter to the Ext2 volume.
I can read documents, view images and videos, etc., from the LM SSD but something has gone catastrophic with the LM operating system. Is there a way to recover from this? I know I could probably just nuke and pave it (e.g. Use SecureErase to wipe and then reinstall LM) but I was hoping maybe something less destructive. Right now I am going to try to use a Samsung utility to see what the SSD's health might be.
Facebook
Twitter