12.04 Failing to boot

Linux Support
1

Something has happened to my PC and it now wont boot to Desktop.
I get the GRUB Bootloader

Ubuntu, with Linux 3.2.0-27-generic
Ubuntu, with Linux 3.2.0-27-generic (recovery mode)
Previous Linux versions
Memory test (memtest86+)
Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)
Ubuntu, with Linux 3.0.0-23-generic (on /dev/sdc1)
Ubuntu, with Linux 3.0.0-23-generic (recovery mode) (on /dev/sdc1)
Ubuntu, with Linux 3.0.0-23-generic (on /dev/sdc1)

Trying to boot normally I get;
Unable to connect to system bus: Failed to connect to socket /var/run/system_bus_socket: No such file

Last thing I installed was Samba share

2

Another thing I’ve noticed on the boot screen is the countdown is no longer there if thats anything of concern?

3

When the system stalls, can you get to a command prompt by hitting Ctrl+Alt+F3 ?

4

I can get to a command line by pressing c as it says at the bottom of the HRUB Loader

Use the and keys to select which entry is highlighted.
Press enter to boot the selected OS, ‘e’ to edit the commands
before booting or ‘c’ for a command-line.

That takes me to

Grub>

5

That’s not what I meant (that’s a GRUB prompt)… boot normally … and when the system hangs after displaying that message hit Ctrl+Alt+F3

Are you now presented with a black screen with white writing, asked to log on ?

6

I press the first option in the loader and get ‘UBUNTU’ and the ‘dots’.
I press ‘Ctrl’ + ‘Alt’ + ‘F3’ and it coes to a screen with loads of stuff scrolling
Failed command: Read DMA
Status: { DRY ERR }
error: {UNC}
revaluation failed (errno=-5)
end_request: I/O error, dev sdc, sector 2048
Buffer I/O error or device sdc1, logical block 0
irq_stat 0X40000001
cmd c8//00:08:38:08:00/00:00:00:00:00

it just scrolls through that and just went blank, pressed ‘esc’ to get it back and its just doing the same

7

I had to select recovery mode as I cant get anything any other way
After I did that, it came up with ‘root@pooky2483-ubuntu12:~#’
then after a short time, it continues to display other stuff ‘timeout : killing’

8

OK, if you boot to:
Ubuntu, with Linux 3.2.0-27-generic (recovery mode)

then select “drop to a root prompt” (or simlar) … do you get to a workable prompt or not ?

9

yes
but… it then goes on displaying ‘timeout’s’

10

So that’s a NO then ? … would you be able to enter any commands ?

11

yes but it seems it has to be done quickly before it starts displaying the other lines

12

OK, looks like there may be a problem with drive /dev/sdc

Boot to a LiveCD … open a terminal and run:

sudo mkdir /mnt/sda1
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
sudo gedit /mnt/sda1/etc/fstab

Look for the line:-

UUID=959cb526-06f8-4d5d-bec2-a6b42f438b07 /media/Drive1 ext4 defaults 0 0

and comment it out, so it reads:

UUID=959cb526-06f8-4d5d-bec2-a6b42f438b07 /media/Drive1 ext4 defaults 0 0

SAVE the file … then run:

sudo umount /mnt/sda1

Now try rebooting to the hard drive.

13

That worked but I saw something flash up.
Something about ‘Could not write bytes: broken pipe’ or something similar
I that is to do with an error created before as I’ve been getting some ‘drum roll’ type error noise too

14

Was that message displayed as you booted, or shut down ?

15

It was displayed as it was booted up.

16

Also got this this morning;
Why is it trying to do that, isn’t sdc my 500Gb 11.10 boot drive, I’m using the 250Gb 12.04 system???

17

Yeh, but that looks like it was installing a new kernel, at the end of which, os-prober checks all hard drives for OS’s to add to the GRUB bootloader.

Let’s hope that hasn’t broke GRUB … my guess id that GRUB won’t have been updated with the new kernel entry … but will still work … wwe’ll come back to that later, once we’ve sorted the problem with /dev/sdc (if I forget, remind me).

What’s the output from:

sudo fdisk -l

and

mount
18

pooky2483@pooky2483-ubuntu12:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for pooky2483:

Disk /dev/sda: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders, total 490234752 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00044d2a

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 484474879 242236416 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 484474880 490233855 2879488 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0002506b

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 63 1953520064 976760001 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000b1c6d

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 2048 971007999 485502976 83 Linux
/dev/sdc2 971010046 976771071 2880513 5 Extended
/dev/sdc5 971010048 976771071 2880512 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdd: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0009b408

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 63 3907024064 1953512001 83 Linux
pooky2483@pooky2483-ubuntu12:~$
pooky2483@pooky2483-ubuntu12:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for pooky2483:

Disk /dev/sda: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders, total 490234752 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00044d2a

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 484474879 242236416 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 484474880 490233855 2879488 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0002506b

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 63 1953520064 976760001 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000b1c6d

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 2048 971007999 485502976 83 Linux
/dev/sdc2 971010046 976771071 2880513 5 Extended
/dev/sdc5 971010048 976771071 2880512 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdd: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0009b408

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 63 3907024064 1953512001 83 Linux
pooky2483@pooky2483-ubuntu12:~$

mount

[/quote]
pooky2483@pooky2483-ubuntu12:~$ mount
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755)
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/Drive2 type ext4 (rw)
/dev/sdd1 on /media/Drive3 type ext4 (rw)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/pooky2483/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=pooky2483)
pooky2483@pooky2483-ubuntu12:~$

19

Hmm … odd, fdisk seems to have no problem reading (at least the partition table of) /dev/sdc

What happens if you run:

sudo fsck /dev/sdc1

DO NOT run that command whilst /dev/sdc1 is mounted … you can check if it’s mounted with the:

mount

command.

It won’t be mounted unless you’ve manually accessed the drive … so if in doubt, REBOOT, then run the fsck command above.

Have you got enough space on one of your other drives to copy the user files from the 500GB drive, so we can format it if necessary ?
(don’t do it yet … just answer the question)

20

What does that do, its taking a while…

DO NOT run that command whilst /dev/sdc1 is mounted .. you can check if it's mounted with the: 
mount

command.

It won’t be mounted unless you’ve manually accessed the drive … so if in doubt, REBOOT, then run the fsck command above.

I rebooted anyway

Have you got enough space on one of your other drives to copy the user files from the 500GB drive, so we can format it if necessary ? (don't do it yet .. just answer the question)

I don’t think I have but I do have that other 250 Gb HD that I can format and put some stuff on and try and shuffle stuff around and if necessary, use the lappy and hopefully transfer some stuff over to it networked (If it’s configured correct)