Dell Latitude D531 boot errors. (media errors)

[Haarlem]

Hi and greetz from The Netherlands,

I have poked around in linux off and on for years, but am still a total n00b.

One of the things I havn't been able to get fixed are the MANY errors I encounter during the boot. Buffer i/o errors, media errors etc. Though at the end of the rain of errors, I do get a prompt, I can start my GUI and the things I use seem fine. The video, the sound, my network interfaces, USB...
Seeing as how the errors take aprox. 3minutes, I would love to get rid of them and boot nice and clean and quickly.

I use: Kubuntu 9.04. MD5 checked OK. CD verified OK.

I made a video showing the boot containing many errors (sorry for the quality):Youtube.com search code: NuvpnDdPiuk.

All advise and or tips in the right direction will be greatly appreciated!

[D-cat]

Looks like bad sectors, can't really tell though.

Please show me the output of

mount

sudo fdisk -l

(that's FDISK -L in lower case). My intention is to get you to run a thorough filesystem check (fsck), but first I need to know for certain what fs is mounted where. Also, are you able to boot a live CD? That makes this job a bit easier.

[Haarlem]

Mount:
/dev/sda5 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.28-15-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw,mode=755)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)

Fdisk:
Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x41ab2316

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 5267 42307146 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 5268 9729 35841015 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 5268 9540 34322841 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 9541 9729 1518111 82 Linux swap / Solaris


Thanks a lot for your quick reply. I am getting increasingly enthousiastic about Kubuntu and want to replace XP with it as everyday OS.

ps. Yes, I can run live CDs and/or USBs.

[D-cat]

Okay, good. Boot with a Live CD, then open a terminal window. I'll assume you're using the Ubuntu CD for these commands.

sudo umount /dev/sda5
(it's okay if this gives a not mounted error)

sudo fsck.ext3 -fcky /dev/sda5

Go make dinner, it'll be a while.

[Haarlem]

Will be trying this tonight, before I hit the sack. Thanks, I'll keep you posted.

Nathan

[Haarlem]

Hi D-cat,

Here is the result of the fsck:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fsck.ext3 -fcky /dev/sda5
e2fsck 1.41.4 (27-Jan-2009)
Checking for bad blocks (read-only test): done
/dev/sda5: Updating bad block inode.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information

/dev/sda5: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
/dev/sda5: 116084/2146304 files (0.6% non-contiguous), 1449724/8580710 blocks

After this I rebooted from HDD and the errors are still there, in abundance.

If at all it is any help analytically, the same errors occur while not only booting Kubuntu from fresh install on HDD (after md5check and CD intergrity chaeck) but, also when booting from Kubuntu Live CD and Backtrack 4 pre-release Live USB.

Thanks again.

[D-cat]

/dev/sda5: Updating bad block inode.
...
/dev/sda5: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****

The problem appears confirmed, and may be getting worse. fsck can't help data that has already been written to bad blocks, so the errors will persist. If you have access to a different hard drive, I suggest you try it.

[Haarlem]

I have a two identical laptops (don't ask why ) and installed identical software on the other one as well. Conclusion, the other one works like a charm. I think I am going to call Dell to replace my HDD. I still have guarantee on it.

I really NEED to make a partition image, or something of the sort, of this one though. I can't loos all my Kubuntu progress. That would devistate me.

Could you please advise the best way (or point me to a guide) to backup everything. So that once I install Kubuntu 9.04 on my new HDD I can restore everthing exactly the way it was.

Thank you so much.

ps. I found this guide: "Howto: Backup and restore your system!" on the ubuntu forums [dot] org. I can't paste the URL because I haven't met the criteria of 15 posts yet. What are your thoughts on it?

[D-cat]

I wouldn't do an image backup because that would also copy the badblocks inode. I would do a file mode backup (.tar.gz) of everything in your /home directory. This will make an easy restore for your personal files and settings, while not wasting space with system stuff that'll get set back up on a new install anyway.

It looks to me, assuming that you will be using removable media (like a CD-R) to make this backup, that dar will be of most use (and its KDE gui, kdar). If you're backing up to an external hard drive, you can probably just use ark.

[rcgreen]

The error messages seemed to be referring to
/dev/sda1 That is your NTFS partition.