Hi, I am running Kubuntu 8.04 (Hardy) amd64 on an HP dv6000. Lately when i try to boot the boot freezes/goes to text only mode with this error message
earlier in the week i fought with the above error and this one
I fixed that issue by updating my kernel (kernel 2.6.24-21-generic), and haven't ran into that error yet, not sure if it semi-related. So far i get the abnormal exit error about 2 out of every 3 boots, its starting to get a bit irritating. Also the boot options i have tried have been acpi_irq_balance, noapic irqfixup, noapic acpi_irq_balance. Nothing seams to work. I do not know what logs would be good to post. So if you need anything please just let me know, and i will post. Any help would be great.

I suspect that the disk drive is going bad. It sounds like random blocks are becoming corrupted.

you know the funny part is i have been thinking that for quiet sometime lately. is there any way to test the harddrive for failures? I ran a smartctl long test yesterday and it completed without error, so any ideas on how to test that? Thankfully my laptop is still under warranty but need some proof before i say send me a new harddrive.

I find that very subtle disk drive failures are hard to pin down with any certainty. If you explain to your computer vendor that you have had to install your operating system several times because the files become corrupted your computer vendor may accept your diagnosis. You may also find that if you tell them that you put Linux on the machine they will say that you voided your warranty. Tell them that you put Windows on the machine, you've had to reinstall several times because the operating system won't boot due to corrupted files soon after you reinstall Windows. If they tell you to return the drive be sure that you wipe Linux and GRUB off of the disk.

I'm generally against deception but when vendors say that installing Linux voids your warranty then they are being unreasonable.

I have found that smartctl can pass bad drives. The problem that you are probably experiencing is very subtle so normal tests like i/o transfer rate, (my favorite test), and smartctl can miss problems. Running badblocks several times to see if it finds more bad blocks each run is a good test. The same principle applies if you have Windows and run chkdsk several times to see if it finds new bad blocks on each run.

Oh i have gone through the hoops before with HP. Before i send anything to the shop, since i know they reinstall windows I make a backup and use a Nuke CD and completely wipe the hard drive and reinstall windows. Might be overkill but at least i know they wont find any traces of grub/linux. Fun part is this is the second hard drive with this laptop. First one just completely died. Thanks for the tip