cannot determine the run level

[d0mufasa]

Hello all,

I have opensuse 10.3

Everything has been working fine for several months, then out of the blue, something changed.

I woke up to see that the system was down.

When trying to start it, it goes to

can't determine runlevel and stalls - OR - if it gets past that point, it stops at setting up the hardware clock

What steps can one take to solve the problem?

TIA

[gogalthorp]

Try running the repair option from the install CD/DVD

This may be a hardware problem.

try running the memory check again from the install CD/DVD

[d0mufasa]

Try running the repair option from the install CD/DVD

This may be a hardware problem.

try running the memory check again from the install CD/DVD

Hi and thanks for responding

I tried to use the repair option of Opensuse and when it was running, it had also stopped at :

setting up the hardware clock

but when going down the installation route, the first install screen comes up with no problem - waiting to go for a new install.

I don't understand why (when using the install CD), it does no run into the problem but when using any of the kernels located on the hard disk, all of them run into the problem.

[gogalthorp]

Possible disk corruption. Do a low level scan of the disk. You should be able to get some low level scan software from you disk manufacturer's web site. I use Spinrite but this is not a free program. You should also be able to do some file system checks and repairs from the install CD.

[D-cat]

I've had manufacturer utilities prove useless before. Spinrite is by far the best thing out there for low level scanning and repair, it's well worth it.
There's nothing wrong with a high level scan first, assuming you can get the machine to boot a live CD (or recovery console boot off the install CD).

Logged in a root:

fdisk -l

to get a list of partitions. Assuming they're all ext3 partitions, run for each:

fsck.ext3 -fcky [partition]

This is equivalent to a thorough scandisk with automatically repair errors.

Edit: if using ReiserFS:
Reiser is a bit more of a PITA, since there's no real automatic fixit mode. You have to scan for errors first, then run the appropriate fix afterwards. man reiserfsck for more info.

reiserfsck --force --check [partition]

will only check for errors, not fix them. Any errors it finds, it'll let you know what to run next (or it's supposed to).