Re: SuSE boot problems

[nospam [at] janes.demon.co.uk (Matthew Collins)]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2000 09:50:07 -0000, Keith Powell
<keith [at] keithg4jvx.f9.co.uk> wrote:

>sheflug - http://www.sheflug.co.uk
>
>I'm having problems with booting SuSE. I have the full version of 6.3.
>
>For a couple of weeks or so, it was working OK. Then I started to get
>Kernel Panic error messages while it was booting and the process stopped.
>These stoppages occurred at various points. The only way I could get over
>this was be re-installing Linux. then it would boot several times before
>these messages re-appeared. As where they happened was not consistent, I
>can't give the actual points. I have lost count of the number of times I
>have reinstalled the thing! I have installed it using YAST2 automatic and
>guided, I have installed it using YAST1, and I have installed it from the
>boot disk SuSE supplied. However I did it, the same thing happened - it
>worked for a few times then went. When it was working,It always closed down
>correctly.
>

There are several possible reasons for this.

You say you are a Linux Newbie. Have you been shuting down your
computer correctly, or just switching it off? There are several ways
to shutdown. You can select Logoff and Shutdown (if you are using KDE
or Gnome). Or you can type shutdown -h now, halt or various other
commands. If you have just been logging out and then switching your
machine off, there is a good chance that you will have corrupted the
partition. When you reboot, fsck will fire up and attempt to fix it.
If it cannot, you will get a kernel panic (unable to mount root). Do
you know what kernel panic it was. There is usually another part to
the message.

Your distribution has enabled DMA transfers on the hard disk, and
these are not working right, and have corrupted your partition,
leaving the kernel unable to mount the root partition.

You have a faulty hard disk. If it is a new one, send it back. If it
is an old one, chuck it in the bin. You don't want to trust your data
to a bad hard disk.

>A few days ago, things got worse. Now I install it and when I switch the
>computer off and next come to run it, it won't boot. I get an error message:
>Not found any [active partition] in HDD. Disk boot failure, insert system
>disk and press enter. Doing this gives me LIL-, then nothing else. This
>happens whichever of the methods I use to install SuSE. Linux is on its own
>hard drive, on a caddy.

Have you been switching the machine off before removing the disk from
the caddy? Have you let the disk spin down before removing the caddy?
Sudden movements on an unpowered, still spinning disk can be bad news.
Not usually the case with newers disks, but old drives can be quite
fragile in this way.

>
>For the last couple of days, I have been using RedHat from the Linux Answers
>magazine, installing it as the magazine instructions. This has installed
>with no problems and, in spite of running it many times, it hasn't given me
>any trouble.

The redhat distribution might not have DMA enabled on drive transfers,
so this might be the problem.

>
>My questions are,
>
>1) Why has this started to happen with SuSE?
>2) What can I do about it to prevent it happening and to run SuSE?
>
>If anyone can give any advice, I would very much appreciate it, please. As I
>am an elderly Linux novice, please keep any advice fairly basic!
>
>Many thanks.
>
>Keith
>
>keith [at] keithg4jvx.f9.co.uk
>

My advise. (Sorry, only saw the keep it basic bit when I got to the
end)

Always shutdown your box correctly. Don't switch off until you see the
System Halted message.
If the redhat distribution dosn't play up, stick with it. If you do
want to try Suse, find out how to disable DMA on your controller.
If it starts happening again, and you're shutting down correctly, and
you've disabled DMA, send the hard disk back.

Hope this helps.

--
Matthew Collins

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