-----Original Message----- From: luv-main-bounces@luv.asn.au [mailto:luv-main-bounces@luv.asn.au] On Behalf Of Lindsay Sprinter Sent: Tuesday, 26 February 2013 12:10 PM To: luv-main@luv.asn.au Subject: Booting problem
Just wondering if anyone has any ideas on a problem thats just appeared.
One of my systems here ocasionally does not startup correctly. The system is running Debian testing from around 3 or 4 monts ago. The Motherboard an AUS P6X58D E Premium, drive layout is 1st drive an WD 160G around 6 years old, 2nd an OCZ Vertex 4 128g SSD, the final drive an WD Caviar Black 1Tb. The system dual boots with WIndow XP, windows C drive and the Linux root drive both being on the 1st disk.
What happens in on startup the bios displays an id screen then displays the mount of memory, then scans the USB ports for a drive, final scans the SATA ports and then boots. When it fails it stops when it should be displaying the amount of memory. Very occasionaly it will wait a bit and boot with the boot loader lilo just displaying an L and the error number 99. This behavior could be instructive. The L displayed means the first stage loader has successfully been loaded but failed to load the second stage loader. The error number 99 is an unspecfied error. The system will compile a kernel OK (2.7.4), although this only uses 1.8 gig of the 3.5 gig avaivible, it would seems the memory is OK.
It would seem the most likely suspect is the first hardisk, the 160g WD is trying to fail. Although it currently shows no other symptoms, would this stop the bios from proceeding? It could be instructive to read the 12 Volt line going to the drive but I have yet to build an extension adapter allowing my to cut into the power cable to the drive. I believe one can purchase such an item now although I have never seen one as yet. Mind you the PSU is a Corsair HX650 which is a known hi-quality item, although such beasts can still fail. The drives do not fail under load as they usually do when one has a dicey 12 Volt line.
Anyone have any ideas?
If I were diagnosing such a system I'd be booting from a live cd/usb that has smartmon tools etc and using that. smartctl -H /dev/sda (or whatever your disk is) dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null bs=1M (should report any read failures) then maybe run some of the other smartctl tests With a compatible USB<->SATA bridge you may be able to plug the disk into another system and run the tests that way but I've had limited success with some bridges - with the -H option they report everything is OK without telling you that the amount of testing they can actually do is pretty much nil. James