Very Computer

by **whea** » Thu, 20 Jul 2000 04:00:00

Hey,

This isn't just a KDE problem, but it involves KDE (and I'm more
familiar with you guys than anyone on the linux OS groups), so
I'm posting here.

I was posting to remarq.com earlier today and suddenly my hard
drive became very active (for no good reason), so much so that
it was really dragging my system down. This kept up for some
time, at which point I did a hard restart (I know, probably not
smart).

It rebooted and made it to the KDE logon screen, let me back
in. So I'm back on reamarq, and the same thing happens. And
after trying (w/o luck) to get a Konsole open so I could issue a
shutdown command, I hard restarted it again.

But now, it's not loading linux. It goes through the Gateway
splash screen, says the keyboard is detected. And then says
"Fixed Disk 0; Quantum Fireball St6.4a". At that point, it goes
no further except to print "Press <F1> to enter setup" across
the bottom (but pressing F1 does nothing).

Here's the complete text of the startup screen:

Quote:>PhoenixBIOS4.0 Release 6.0
>[snip copyright info]
>[Gateway2000 logo]
>Pentium II processor 266 MHz
>640K System RAM passed
>127M Extended RAM passed
>512K Cache SRAM passed
>System Bios Shadowed
>Video Bios Shadowed
>UMB Upper limit segment address: F00C
>Keyboard detected
>Fixed Disk 0: Quantum Fireball ST6.4a

And then I'm hung. I tried booting from a linux cd and a
disaster floppy (as per the directions in my linux book) but to
no avail. It seems to just hang up entirely at that point and
won't do anything.

Any help would be appreciated,

Wheat

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by **Thoma** » Fri, 21 Jul 2000 04:00:00

So he detects up to your Quantum, is there any other HW in your box?
CD/SCSI/IDE drives

Can you enter your bios? (with del or something)

Do you have a bootable cd with linux (Suse for example lets
you boot from the CD and then boot into your own linux in
case of this kind of failure)?

ps. You might want to consider ReiserFS, you can never crash that
;-)

> Hey,
> This isn't just a KDE problem, but it involves KDE (and I'm more
> familiar with you guys than anyone on the linux OS groups), so
> I'm posting here.
> I was posting to remarq.com earlier today and suddenly my hard
> drive became very active (for no good reason), so much so that
> it was really dragging my system down. This kept up for some
> time, at which point I did a hard restart (I know, probably not
> smart).
> It rebooted and made it to the KDE logon screen, let me back
> in. So I'm back on reamarq, and the same thing happens. And
> after trying (w/o luck) to get a Konsole open so I could issue a
> shutdown command, I hard restarted it again.
> But now, it's not loading linux. It goes through the Gateway
> splash screen, says the keyboard is detected. And then says
> "Fixed Disk 0; Quantum Fireball St6.4a". At that point, it goes
> no further except to print "Press <F1> to enter setup" across
> the bottom (but pressing F1 does nothing).
> Here's the complete text of the startup screen:
>>PhoenixBIOS4.0 Release 6.0
>>[snip copyright info]
>>[Gateway2000 logo]
>>Pentium II processor 266 MHz
>>640K System RAM passed
>>127M Extended RAM passed
>>512K Cache SRAM passed
>>System Bios Shadowed
>>Video Bios Shadowed
>>UMB Upper limit segment address: F00C
>>Keyboard detected
>>Fixed Disk 0: Quantum Fireball ST6.4a
> And then I'm hung. I tried booting from a linux cd and a
> disaster floppy (as per the directions in my linux book) but to
> no avail. It seems to just hang up entirely at that point and
> won't do anything.
> Any help would be appreciated,
> Wheat
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> Got questions? Get answers over the phone at Keen.com.
> Up to 100 minutes free!
> http://www.keen.com

by **whea** » Fri, 21 Jul 2000 04:00:00

>So he detects up to your Quantum, is there any other HW in your
>box? CD/SCSI/IDE drives

It just has a CD-ROM, a floppy, soundcard and ethernet card.

Quote:>Can you enter your bios? (with del or something)

How do I enter it? (sorry for being so totaly clueless).

Quote:>Do you have a bootable cd with linux (Suse for example lets
>you boot from the CD and then boot into your own linux in
>case of this kind of failure)?

No, but I could go to the bookstore and score one. Is the RedHat
CD bootable? (I'm running RedHat 6.1). I don't think the stores
around here carry any other distro except Mandrake.

Thanks for your help. Any other pointers will surely be
appreciated.

Sincerely,

Wheat

-----------------------------------------------------------

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by **whea** » Fri, 21 Jul 2000 04:00:00

Just an update. I've been surfing around reading up on boot
disks and I tried to use one that I downloaded, but it isn't
working because my box hangs before it reads from the floppy
drive. The status lights tell me it's checking the CD-ROM drive,
then it prints out it's messages (and hangs) w/o ever going to
the floppy.

So I guess a bootable CD is the only answer. Can I copy the
boot.img to a CD? Or will I have to grab a bootable CD distro of
linux (do the latest versions of RH boot from CD?).

Wheat

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by **Robert Pri** » Fri, 21 Jul 2000 04:00:00

Look in your computer manual and it will tell you how to enter the bios
setup routine at startup. (Mine is hitting the del key) There may also
be a message flashed at startup on the screen saying something like "Hit
F1 (or whatever) For BIOS Setup". Check out your hard drive settings
(referring to documentation about your hard drive). Look at other
settings comparing them to what the manual says they should be.

Be afraid though. If you change something critical that should be left
alone, you could make the computer useless. Thus, study the manual
section about the BIOS setup thoroughly before messing with it.

While you are there, check the boot order. Be sure that it looks to the
floppy before looking to the hard drive. If not, change it and try to
boot from the floppy again.

Truly these are bad omens for your hard drive though. Hopefully you can
reformat it.(if it really is fried) or maybe this is the excuse you need
to get that new huge hard drive!

>Hey,

>This isn't just a KDE problem, but it involves KDE (and I'm more
>familiar with you guys than anyone on the linux OS groups), so
>I'm posting here.

>I was posting to remarq.com earlier today and suddenly my hard
>drive became very active (for no good reason), so much so that
>it was really dragging my system down. This kept up for some
>time, at which point I did a hard restart (I know, probably not
>smart).

>It rebooted and made it to the KDE logon screen, let me back
>in. So I'm back on reamarq, and the same thing happens. And
>after trying (w/o luck) to get a Konsole open so I could issue a
>shutdown command, I hard restarted it again.

>But now, it's not loading linux. It goes through the Gateway
>splash screen, says the keyboard is detected. And then says
>"Fixed Disk 0; Quantum Fireball St6.4a". At that point, it goes
>no further except to print "Press <F1> to enter setup" across
>the bottom (but pressing F1 does nothing).

>Here's the complete text of the startup screen:
>>PhoenixBIOS4.0 Release 6.0
>>[snip copyright info]
>>[Gateway2000 logo]
>>Pentium II processor 266 MHz
>>640K System RAM passed
>>127M Extended RAM passed
>>512K Cache SRAM passed
>>System Bios Shadowed
>>Video Bios Shadowed
>>UMB Upper limit segment address: F00C
>>Keyboard detected
>>Fixed Disk 0: Quantum Fireball ST6.4a

>And then I'm hung. I tried booting from a linux cd and a
>disaster floppy (as per the directions in my linux book) but to
>no avail. It seems to just hang up entirely at that point and
>won't do anything.

>Any help would be appreciated,

>Wheat

>-----------------------------------------------------------

>Got questions? Get answers over the phone at Keen.com.
>Up to 100 minutes free!
>http://www.keen.com

--
R o b e r t P r i c e
======================

http://www.enteract.com/~bobprice/

by **Thoma** » Fri, 21 Jul 2000 04:00:00

As a sidenote to this excelent explenation:
- open your box and remove the power to your harddisk (the 4 wire plug in
the back of your HD, the orientation matters when you reinsert it..) Yes your
compy has to be turned off ;-)

This should totally elliminate any problems with your HD. So if the problem
lies elseware you should still not be able to boot. If the problem lies
with the HD, booting should work fine.
At least with an inserted CD or floppy.

Good luck!

by **whea** » Fri, 21 Jul 2000 04:00:00

>As a sidenote to this excelent explenation:
>open your box and remove the power to your harddisk (the 4
>wire plug in the back of your HD, the orientation matters when
>you reinsert it..)

That worked. I was able to enter the setup and change the boot
order (the previous owner of my box had it going removable media,
then hard drive, then CD-ROM--not a good idea!). I was able to
boot from the Red Hat 6.2 CD-ROM that I bought today.

Quote:>This should totally elliminate any problems with your HD. So if
>the problem lies elseware you should still not be able to boot.
>If the problem lies with the HD, booting should work fine.

Cool. Now I just need to learn how to use the Red Hat linux
"rescue mode." I've been using the RH discs to load that. I'm
assuming I can use it to salvage what's left of my drive and copy
it elsewhere.

I really want to thank everyone who has taken the time to help me
on this. I still have tons of questions, and you've been very
patient....

Wheat

-----------------------------------------------------------

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