Hello,

I have been running a web server for the past 2 months. After doing various updates I thought Id restart the box as it seem to be running slow. When it was booting up, just before it usally starts Fedora loading screen, I got a black screen and after 5 mins it shutsdown. It keeps on doing this without error messages just a black screen.

Eventually after playing with BIOS trying to get it to boot up fedora I gave up. So I booted from Fedora 10 DVD and tried to do 'Rescue Installation' been through the options and when it tries to mount it comes back {DRDY ERR} messages. Attempts to remount but the same messages come back.

Now If I boot it up it wont even boot from DVD!

I can sometimes get to the command line via DVD, once im there is there anything to type to force mount on the HD or Is there a way to 'Repair Instillation' in Fedora? Rather than re-installing and format the drive, as I need to get some data off.

Any suggestions and Help is appreciated! Thanks.

On first glance, this is acting more like a hardware problem than a software one. Have you tried running a live distribution like Puppy on this computer?

I used Ubuntu live CD and recieve the same [DRDY ERR] message.

I have just tried to run installation off Fedora 10 dvd and it reaches 'Language selection' then I receive the following error:

Input/Output error during read on /dev/sdb

I am using two hard drives, I tried switching hard drives and still have the same problem.

I just find it unlikely both hard drives can have hardware failure.

You are probably right. Still, to lose the functionality of both hard drives and an optical drive does not seem to be behaving as a mounting problem (to me, at least). As a test, remove the power cable from whatever the secondary hard drive is and give it another try. This will reduce power load and see if the problem might be a failing power supply. If that doesn't work try changing the data cable used by the HDD. If that still doesn't work, you will have to work your way through the various possibilities until you find what is failing. In order, my suspicions are: power supply (not failed but failing), motherboard (fried BIOS or failing components), memory (try memtest 86+), and processor.

You may have also contracted a virus. I know that it is unlikely in Linux, but it does happen.