repeated, changing boot issues in lucid

[jay105]

hi guys

after having some boot issues not so long ago, i was pointed in the direction of rescatux, which solved my problem at the time. now im having a number of other issues. i am dual booting isodora mint and lucid ubuntu.

when my lucid distro is working, it often becomes totally unresponsive during everyday tasks and when i go to restart (or any of the other options) from the shut down menu, i get the window appearing blank. upon rebooting (by pressing ENTER, which works even though there are no buttons within the window), it tells me to either insert boot media or there is a grub failure. this happens almost every session on the computer.

on the times when it says 'insert boot media', generally speaking turning it off for an extended period tends to work. the times when a grub failure occurs, going through rescatux's rescap leads to no other partitions being identified at least 90% of the time.

is this something that anyone recognizes the signs for and can offer me a solution? or does this sound like an intermittent hardware problem?

cheers for any help

[devils casper]

First of all, check your Hard disk using tools provided by your Hard disk Manufacturer.
You should look for cause of this problem in other areas only if tools don't report any Hard disk problem.

[jay105]

hi devils

ive only just managed to get some time to have a look at the computer again, and my problem has changed again.

i switch on the computer and i get a message saying

no init found. try pressing init=bootarg

busybox v1.12.2 (ubuntu 1:1.13.3-1ubuntu11) built-in shell(ash)
enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

surely this is a better indicator to the cause of my problems?

thanks for your help

[devils casper]

Something is wrong with Hard disk only. Boot up from Ubuntu LiveCD and execute fsck command on / partition of Ubuntu.
Let say /dev/sda1 is / partition of Ubuntu. Execute this in Terminal of LiveCD :

sudo fsck -y /dev/sda1

fsck will check errors and try to fix those.

[jay105]

sda1 is my isodora mint 9 partition, and sda6 is my ubuntu.

my three attempts:-

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fsck -y /dva/sda1
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2
e2fsck 1.41.11 (14-Mar-2010)
fsck.ext2: No such file or directory while trying to open /dva/sda1

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem.  If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
    e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fsck -y /dva/sda6/
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2
e2fsck 1.41.11 (14-Mar-2010)
fsck.ext2: No such file or directory while trying to open /dva/sda6/

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem.  If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
    e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo e2fsck -b 8193 /dva/sda1/
e2fsck 1.41.11 (14-Mar-2010)
e2fsck: No such file or directory while trying to open /dva/sda1/

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem.  If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
    e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

[jay105]

this may also be pertinent?



it fully acknowledges my partitions but it says there are no operating systems?!

thanks

[devils casper]

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fsck -y /dva/sda1

Is it a typo? It should be /dev/ instead of /dva.

Post the output of sudo fdisk -l command here.

[jay105]

good spot. revised output for sda1 shows:-

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fsck -y /dev/sda1
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2
e2fsck 1.41.11 (14-Mar-2010)
Journal superblock has an unknown incompatible feature flag set.
Abort? yes

where as sda6 has a BEAST of an output, which crashed firefox (not enough memory in .bin or something, as im running off the LiveCD).

sudo fdisk -l shows as:-

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l 

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000b1e1b

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1       31440   252539062+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2           31440       60802   235845633    5  Extended
/dev/sda5           59491       60146     5256192   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6           31440       58836   220052480   83  Linux
/dev/sda7           58836       59491     5259264   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

although the fsck -y for sda6 seemed to show up a lot of fixes, it hasn't taken away my problem.

thanks

[jay105]

no ideas?

[devils casper]

where as sda6 has a BEAST of an output,

It looks like there is something wrong with Hard disk. Check it using tools provided by your Hard disk manufacturer.