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Abnormal Bootup


DarkSerge

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I'm running an older computer with Xubuntu and a couple times a week it doesn't boot normally.

 

It takes longer than normal to boot up and when it does this, I cannot access any of the hard drives or partitions. Normally all my drives have an icon on the desktop and they show on the side of the file manager; but in the abnormal boots, none of them are visible or viewable in the file manager. I have the Disks utility installed and when there's an abnormal boot it does not run; all I get is a crash notification after a minute. When I tell the system to restart, it also takes longer than normal to shut down before rebooting. Most of the time, on restart everything boots up normally - normal time to boot, and all my disks are accessible, everything is normal.

 

I also have an old 3.5 floppy drive still on this system. When booted normally, the desktop icon for it looks like a standard 3.5" floppy disk. When it abnormally boots, the icon looks more like a USB removable drive icon.

 

The disks the system cannot see during the abnormal boots are NTFS partitions. The file system (the only Linux partition) functions normally.

 

Any thoughts?

 

I plan to replace this system in 7 - 8 months because it's an old system. I'd like to keep it running until then.

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Hedon James

I experience something similar about 1 year ago. Sounds like your system is warning you that a piece of hardware is about to fail. Disk Utility identified my HD as failing, so I made sure I had a recent backup (I did) and replaced the HD. But after replacing the HD and reloading my OS and data, I still experienced the same slow bootup. I disconnected EVERYTHING from my machine and rebooted; everything seemed fine. I started adding peripherals one by one, until the slow boot reappeared. Long story short...my USB hub was failing. Replaced the hub and everything has been fine since. FWIW...

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It is an old system, and I wouldn't be surprised if the case is failing hardware. The last time I booted Windows on it I was getting the delayed write failure notification on one of the hard drives (the same behaviour if you unplug a USB stick without properly ejecting it in Windows) and it appeared as if the drives had lost a lot of data. After booting into Linux everything was fine and I haven't run Windows since.

 

I do have my data backed up on a network drive. I'd be annoyed if the system failed sooner than later, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised.

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Hedon James

Depending on how old, maybe you have an unusually excessive accretion of dust on the motherboard? No sense in losing your entire system over one (probably inexpensive) component. Crack your case open, blow it out with some compressed air, and check your connectors (both ends!) while you're in there, sometimes they vibrate loose after years of disk & fan spinning. The 3.5" floppy behavior catches my eye, but not sure if its a cause or an effect? Disconnecting everything, rebooting, then reconnecting 1 peripheral at a time is a real PITA, but it's not very difficult and it's probably the best way to "save" your system.

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I make a regular habit to dust out the computer with a can of air, so dust shouldn't be an issue; although I did a good dusting today just to be sure.

 

Today was a lot worse. It first booted into a "BusyBox" prompt with a lot of messages about not finding devices. Then it didn't boot at all - the system didn't even detect a boot device. So I opened it up and checked all the connections, did some extra dusting, and made sure the cables were plugged in properly, I tried again, and checked the BIOS setup to make sure all the drives were listed. Everything was listed in its proper place, so I rebooted again and everything started up without a problem. I would kick myself, and be quite relieved, if it turns out it was just jostled cables.

 

The system is just over 10 years old and the two IDE drives are just as old. I also have two SATA drives that are newer than the system and if it comes down to it, I can remove the older drives and reinstall onto one of my SATA drives and run off of that until I can get a new system together. All my data is backed up onto a 2 TB network drive so if I have to loose an old drive to run a little longer I will.

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The system is just over 10 years old and the two IDE drives are just as old.

 

I award you an Honorary Tyke badge for your thrift and dedication to not spending money. Boy oh boy are you in for a treat if you ever get a modern cpu and ssd :Laie_95:

 

Friend-of-Yorkshire-Photo.jpg?resize=251%2C230

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I award you an Honorary Tyke badge for your thrift and dedication to not spending money. Boy oh boy are you in for a treat if you ever get a modern cpu and ssd :Laie_95:

 

 

 

Haha. Thanks! In the next 6 - 7 months I plan to put together a new system and I definitely plan to have modern components. I'm running Xubuntu now but I'm planning to go with Kubuntu on a new system.

Edited by DarkSerge
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I would also check the cmos battery. Usually a cr-2032 button type on the motherboard, if you boot into the bios, is the date off...like by years, another sign is a failure to see devices on boot.

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Hedon James

I would also check the cmos battery. Usually a cr-2032 button type on the motherboard, if you boot into the bios, is the date off...like by years, another sign is a failure to see devices on boot.

 

Good call Barry! I forgot about the cmos, but my cmos was also in need of replacement. Any Walmart, Staples, or Amazon sells 'em for about $1 per battery, usually in 2 or 4 packs. For $2, might as well be certain!

 

My Dell Vostro 400 is also about 10 years old Serge. After replacing my cmos battery, HD, and USB hub, it was repurposed as my server and it has been running fine ever since! I've been thinking about changing the OS from Ubuntu to Lubuntu, or something similarly lightweight, but I don't like to mess with perfectly working devices until they require my interference. Unless it's a spare device....I've been known to break those on purpose just to see if I can repair it, or make it better than before!

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I didn't notice anything off about the date the last time I booted into setup, but I also was looking for something else at the time. I'll have to check up on that. Thank you for the tip!

 

Everything's been running pretty smoothly for a few days now. Haven't had any bad bootups or odd delays since my post about 5 days ago.

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securitybreach

Well that is good... There are so many things that it could be so you just have to troubleshoot and cross them off as you go until you find the root of the problem. I am glad to hear that it is working great now though.

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securitybreach

Date and time in the system setup are just fine. I haven't had any problems in a week now.

Great news man!

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Looks like my luck didn't last. The last two days it went back to the longer boot where I restart to get it to see all my drives. Today it booted up just fine but after 10 minutes or so the system just froze completely. I restarted and after a file system check I got to the login screen, but after typing my password the system completely froze again. If I reboot, I get to a file system check screen, but just as it's about to finish, I goes to a black command prompt-like screen with the text "Welcome to emergency mode!" and some suggested commands to see the system log or reboot.

 

I don't know what to do now.

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securitybreach

Honestly that sounds as though maybe your harddrive is going out. Have you tried booting into a live environment to check if it is indeed the harddrive?

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I haven't tried a live boot just yet, but I have downloaded and burnt a Xubuntu 15.04 DVD. With a Live CD I hope to migrate all my data to a 1 TB SATA drive (although everything is backed up on a network drive.)

 

I'm starting to consider whether it's worth it to get this computer running again. I'm going to try to pull the older IDE drives which the OS has been running from (they are as old as the system, so failing hard drives is a possibility) and install Xubuntu on my other SATA drive and see how that runs. I know this is an old computer and I've already started shopping around for parts to make a new system. Even if pulling the older drives and installing on the newer SATA drives works well, I know that old system is probably reaching the end of it's life so even if successful that system has maybe 6 months or less until I replace it entirely.

 

For now I'll be using my laptop running Windows 10.

Edited by DarkSerge
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Haha. I still like like Windows. It's not bad to sit and browse. Plus I still feel best using it for some of my photo editing, still not completely confident doing all my processing and editing with Linux.

 

I am running a Xunbuntu live CD right now so I can move a bunch of data to a 1 TB SATA drive so when I build a new system I can have all my data on one drive to install in the new system (It is backed up in case something doesn't go right. That hard drive is less than half the age of the system itself so it should still have some good life left in a new system as data storage.)

 

I'm letting the Disks utility run a self-test on the hard drives from Live CD session. So far it says "Disk is OK" but a test is currently running.

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After running the SMART self-tests both drives came back okay. So I tried to boot and got the same thing - a disk check followed by "Welcome to Emergency Mode!" so I rebooted and selected Recovery Mode and when I told it to check disks for errors, this is what I got:

 

20359340221_8f88ce51ba_t.jpg20150806_165032 by Bryan Valentine, on Flickr

 

Xubuntu is installed on sdb1

Edited by DarkSerge
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Hedon James

Now we're getting somewhere! You have a problem with the lightdm desktop login manager! I also had a problem with one of my Ubuntu machines and the lightdm login. I ended up purging lightdm and installing the gnome desktop manager "gdm" for logins. It isn't as "pretty", but it's functional. If you want a quick and easy solution, that's the way to go. If you want to solve your lightdm issue, it appears to be a permission/privilege problem, and someone smarter than me will have to step in and advise. I'll buy the popcorn!

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Okay then, if it can be fixed, I'd like to fix it! The system's life is limited, but the knowledge how to fix things is always good to have. As long as I can log into my system and use it I'm fine.

 

So how do I fix it?

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I'm currently unable to log into the system, so I'll have to find a way through recovery or a live CD boot. I can't get it to work though. GDM is not installed, so I try to apt-get command to install it and I get this:

 

W: Not using locking for read only lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock

E: Unable to write to /var/cache/apt/

E: The package lists or status file could be be parsed or opened

 

When I try "Enable Networking" in recovery mode, I get an error message, but it's not on screen long enough for me to get a read or take a picture.

 

I do have an Ubuntu Alternate CD because I once had to do this:

 

http://bernaerts.dyn...ilure-initramfs

 

Towards the end of step 1 it says "Do not use root file system" but what if instead I select where my system is installed and then run the gdm commands?

Edited by DarkSerge
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Hedon James

I installed gdm through recovery mode. Can you get to a terminal? If you can get to a terminal, you can use:

 

sudo apt-get install gdm

to install the gnome desktop manager

 

and then

 

sudo apt-get remove lightdm

to remove lightdm, then reboot.

 

If you're using a LiveCD, I think you need to use chroot to mount your corrupted OS as a folder on your LiveCD, and then install gdm. I believe this is what you're looking for:

 

http://www.webupd8.org/2014/01/how-to-fix-non-bootable-ubuntu-system.html

 

But in the interests of full disclosure though, I have NOT attempted this procedure and have never messed with chroot. Please don't just follow my link because I posted it. This is only what I THINK the solution is, if you cannot fix via recovery or via terminal. I hope someone with chroot experience will chime in...

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I can't get into the system at all - no GUI or terminal. If I boot into recovery mode I can get to a command prompt but the "sudo apt-get install gdm" command doesn't seem to work; I get the errors I mentioned above. I also seem to be at a command prompt when I attempt to boot normally and get the "Welcome to Emergency Mode!" screen, but I get the same error when I try apt-get.

 

I have two different Live CDs. I have Xubuntu 15.04 and Ubuntu Alternate 12.04. The Alternate allows the "Repair a broken system" with the eventual option to mount a file system where I can choose where I have Xubuntu installed.

 

I'll give something a try again tomorrow.

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securitybreach

It sounds like you may have to chroot into your installation via livecd to install gdm. You should be able to do that via the Repair Broken System option but it still sounds like the drive is failing so who knows..

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Yeah, I'm sure the system is failing, and even if I fix this something else might go wrong in another week or so. If anything this is a good learning experience on what to do in various situations in case something like this happens after I've got a new system together. I'll try again later this afternoon with the Repair Broken System option.

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