Just sits there when booting after dist-upgrade

[flipjargendy]

I wasn't thinking, I didn't stop gdm before entering apt-get dist-upgrade. I rebooted after the dist-upgrade and stopped gdm to finish the upgrade. Then I booted again to the new Kernel. Unfortunately it just sits there. Is there any way to re-run the dist-upgrade?

I've already removed the new kernel and tried re-installing it separatly but now it's just removed from the GRUB list. I'm afraid I've become burned out over too much thinking today and have done too many reckless things in the past hour on my computer. So I'm calling it a night.

Thanks for any info. If I don't get any responses by late tomorrow morning I'm just going to re-install... please tell me I don't have to do that... is there any other way out?!

I'm using ReiserFS journaling system by the way... not Ext3.

[jledhead]

when you say it just sits there, do you mean the computer has probably booted but X is broken, or it sits on a command and doesn't go any further?

after the computer has booted up (go by the normal hardware noise), do
CTRL+ALT+F1
if X is just broken you should get a command prompt. you can login and start investigating. report back if thats not the case.

[devils casper]

Which Graphics Card do you have? If you have Nvidia or ATI graphics card then you have to re-install Graphics Driver.
Press Alt+Ctrl+F1, log in at command line login prompt and execute this

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xerver-xorg

Select "vesa" driver from Video Drivers list. Reboot machine.

sudo shutdown -r now

"vesa" driver will fix X Server problem and you can install Graphics Driver easily.

[flipjargendy]

I just sits there during the bootup process... I don't even think it gets to mounting the hard drives. A couple of times it's been right after detecting [sda] and all I have plugged in is my Intelimouse. I still see the text from the bootup process and there should be more coming but it just stops.

I'm just going to do another clean install I guess. Although if anyone has a solution it would be great to hear incase this happens again. Thanks.

[jledhead]

you could use a live cd like ubuntu or knoppix and add that kernel back to your grub and try booting that back up.

[devils casper]

Could you post a few error messages here? Have you tried pressing Alt+Ctrl+F1?

[flipjargendy]

I couldn't remember the errors but after a fresh install and dist-upgrade again, I get the same thing.

After the USB devices are checked successfully, the readout that seems to be the unsuccessful part is:

Begin: Mounting root file system
Begin: Running /sript/localtop ...
Done.
Begin: Waiting for root file system... ...

That is where it sits. The light for the HD is not flashing, so I'm guessing there is no processing going on.

[devils casper]

Boot up from any LiveCD and mount / partition of Debian. Post the contents of /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/menu.lst files. Post the output of fdisk -l command too.

[flipjargendy]

I can still boot the old kernel but the newest one doesn't work. These readouts are from when I boot the old kernel.

/etc/fstab:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
/dev/hda1       /               reiserfs notail          0       1
/dev/hda2       /home           reiserfs defaults        0       2
/dev/hda6       /windows        vfat    defaults        0       0
/dev/hda5       none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/hdc        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0

/boot/grub/menu.lst (excluding comments):

## ## End Default Options ##

title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.22-3-686
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-3-686 root=/dev/hda1 ro 
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-3-686

title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.22-3-686 (single-user mode)
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-3-686 root=/dev/hda1 ro single
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-3-686

title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-5-686
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-5-686 root=/dev/hda1 ro 
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-5-686

title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-5-686 (single-user mode)
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-5-686 root=/dev/hda1 ro single
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-5-686

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

fdisk -l:

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80060424192 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9733 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x50bb50fb

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1        1094     8787523+  83  Linux
/dev/hda2            1095        6565    43945807+  83  Linux
/dev/hda3            6566        9733    25446960    5  Extended
/dev/hda5            6566        6629      514048+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda6            6630        9733    24932848+   b  W95 FAT32

I don't think it makes much difference but just in case, here is my sources.list too:

# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 r1 _Etch_ - Official i386 NETINST Binary-1 20070820-20:21]/ etch contrib main
# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 r1 _Etch_ - Official i386 NETINST Binary-1 20070820-20:21]/ etch contrib main

######################
##    Misc Repos    ##
###################### 

## Opera Browser - Beta release

#deb http://deb.opera.com/opera-beta/ etch non-free
deb http://deb.opera.com/opera-beta/ lenny non-free
#deb http://deb.opera.com/opera-beta/ sid non-free

######################
## OFFICIAL TESTING ##
######################
deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb-src ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib

deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org lenny main


######################
##  OFFICIAL STABLE ##
######################
#deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ etch main
#deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ etch main

#deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib
#deb-src http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib