Hi guys,

Have we any hot-shot hardware troubleshooters out there?

I bought an Acer Aspire M1201 desktop about a month ago and to begin with, everything seemed fine (my favourite Debian 4 Etch installed no problem and the live CDs booted up just fine) but lately it seems to have become rather flakey and virtually no Linux distro I try to run or install on it will complete successfully (the sole exception so far being Slackware 12.1 which must have happened on a good day). My experiences have led me to believe it's a hardware problem of some sort....

I thought perhaps it might be a problem with the CD/DVD reader, so I hooked up and external Phillips one, which although it gets further in most cases, still typically doesn't go the whole way. Here's what I found:

Slax 6.0.7 live CD from the in-built optical drive freezes at the same point each time during boot-up. When tried from the external USB optical drive, however, whilst it also fails at the same point again and again, it's NOT the SAME point of failure as when booting from the desktop machine's internal drive! With the external drive, it gets further into the process before going tits-up.

Debian 4r5 (the so-called "etch-and-a-half" release). I have this on both the full DVD and the smaller CD image. In BOTH cases, however, the attempt to install fails at the point when the stage, "setting up the clock..." appears on the screen. It just hangs ever-after.

Knoppix live CD: when booted from the internal drive, the process fails very early in with this message: " Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem, sorry. Dropping you to a very limited shell. Press re-set button to quit." However, when the same disk is booted from the external USB DVD drive, there appears to be no problem and the process completes, but this system appears unable to recognise the presence of the hard drive.

My earlier version of the Slax live CD I have doesn't recognize SATA drives, but I tried it anyway out of curiosity. When booted from the computer's internal drive, the process failed with this message: "you are maybe using an unsupported boot device (eg SCSI or PCMCIA CD ROM). Something went wrong and we can't continue. This should never happen. Please reboot." Upon trying the same disk again from the external drive, however, Slax DID complete ok, - but with a striking psychedellic colour scheme which whilst visually amazing, made trying to read the textual dialogue boxes very difficult indeed.

The full Knoppix DVD (latest version) failed at the same point in both internal and external optical drives. The failure point was immediately after "Scanning for Harddisk partitions and creating /etc/fstab.......Done." at which point all that remained was a blinking cursor. This same disk functioned perfectly well only a couple of weeks ago.

Upon trying to install Fedora 10 to a spare partition on the system, the process failed AGAIN. This time, about 10 seconds into the install, the video signal was cut, the screen just displayed a box with "no video signal" and there was no further Hard drive activity.

Now all these CDs and DVDs were created with an entirely seperate, known-good system at low-speed and checked for burn integrity, checksum parse and whatnot. Most are the optimised AMD versions. They work fine even on my laptops, but not on this new desktop. Do the above experiences ring any bells with anyone?

Here's the hardware summary:

Acer Aspire M1201 desktop, Athlone 4400 64x2-core processor
3GB of RAM (Linux Rescue CD memory test indicates no errors)
320GB Western Digital S-ATA / EIDE 7000rmp hard drive
ATI Radeon 2100 Graphics card.

I executed the command: "dmesg > boot.messages" so I could post some extra info that might have been helpful to y'all in tracking down the problem and
ended up with a verbose record of events written to a usb stick, and the file was perfectly readable in Kwrite, but when transferring it to this Windows box to append to this message and post it for your consideration, Whinedoze only response was: "drive H is unformatted. Format now?" I clicked "no" and returned it to the Linux machine, whereupon it proved unmountable, claiming it couldn't ascertain the stick's file system! Sheesh. Something's not right! Plus I can't take the lid-off for fear of invalidating the warranty.

Anyone got any useful steer for me? I'm dying out here!

Thanks.

CC.

If you are afraid to touch the hardware ( don't want to void warranty ) return the beast. See if the retailer, can have it looked at.

What you describe could be any number of things. Power would be my first guess, since the system did work for a month. ( that kind of rules out the BIOS )

Memory, you looked at that. The symptoms are typical of flaky memory. You could remove 2 gig of ram and try it, but if you don't want to void the warranty...

Will any other OS ( windbloze ) boot up?

The single common denominator here is the "known good system". Presumably, the brand of blank CD/DVD is also the same.

CD/DVD have proven rather problematical as backup media; what is written on one device too often cannot be read on another device. The alignment on the burner could be off just a bit, and/or the brand of blank CD/DVD could be one that some readers have trouble with. I have seen this all too often.

Suggest burning using a different burner and/or try a different brand of blanks.

Actually, the blank media CD/DVDs are almost all from *different* well-known manufacturers: Philips, Verbatim, Fuji, Sony and whatnot. And I didn't notice any problems during the first month I had the new machine. The same KNOPPIX DVD that booted up fine on it a few weeks ago now won't get past Old Kent Road so I don't think it can be a media problem. I notice although this thread has had quite a few views, the problem seems to have left others as stumped for an answer as I am, for there has only been one other reply at this time besides yours. Thanks anyway for the suggestion, though.

It's annoying as I have two oscilloscopes I could use to check out the stability and cleanliness of the power supply unit, but they're about 400 miles away. :-(

It's a serious pain in the backside because the retailer is a French hypermarket who don't do in-house repairs/inspections and the thing would have to go back to Acer. Last time I sent an Acer item back under warranty it was gone for 4 months (to Taiwan!) Not being able to whip the lid off and do a few simple visual checks is a REAL bummer.

As for 'doze, I could try installing XP professional, but in doing so, that would wipe out my carefully prepared partition structure and the Slackware 12.1 that I was *eventually* able to install on the first partition!

Tricky. :-(

So, although a lot of distros fall over, knoppix (and slack) from the external USB DVD boot OK (even if slack is ugly ).
So memory, CPU, PSU, Video etc are all OK.

I'd suspect your HDD (& presumably also CD/DVD) controller because there's a problem with booting from the internal DVD/CD and when knoppix eventually boots (from a USB drive), it cannot then see your HDD.

Any settings in the BIOS to tweak or check?

I'd chuck the warranty and lift the lid (but then I'm a hardware guy at heart). Maybe all that is needed is to re-seat the cables and give it a smack, or maybe you need a new controller......

Won't acer do over the phone troubleshooting and then ship you the suspected component for replacement ?

I have done this with other vendors in the past. Dell recently had me DISASSEMBLE a laptop and remove the palm rest cover to re-seat the touchpad cable into the connector to see if that was why the button wasn't working. They finally agree the touchpad switch was bad (which is what I told them before we did the troubleshooting dance for an hour) and dispatched the part and a tech to install it. I find this funny since they already had me completely disassemble and re-assemble the unit and I could have easily replaced the part myself at that point. It's been quite common to have Hard drives, Optical drives, motherboards, and various parts shipped to be replaced, sometimes they want the old part back and sometimes they don't. Beats waiting a month or more to get it back from depot service.

Is there a diagnostic partition on that system like Dell has ? boot to diagnostics and test the various parts of the system ?

You might be right! I've now finally been able to print out the result of dmesg which does seem to indicate that not all went smoothly during the Knoppix CD boot (this is the one that DOES go the distance, btw).

Here's the output:

Linux version 2.6.19 (root@Knoppix) (gcc version 4.1.2 20061028 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-19)) #7 SMP PREEMPT Sun Dec 17 22:01:07 CET 2006
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009f000 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000e4000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 00000000aff90000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 00000000aff90000 - 00000000aff9e000 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 00000000aff9e000 - 00000000affe0000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 00000000affe0000 - 00000000b0000000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fff00000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
1919MB HIGHMEM available.
896MB LOWMEM available.
Entering add_active_range(0, 0, 720784) 0 entries of 256 used
Zone PFN ranges:
DMA 0 -> 4096
Normal 4096 -> 229376
HighMem 229376 -> 720784
early_node_map[1] active PFN ranges
0: 0 -> 720784
On node 0 totalpages: 720784
DMA zone: 32 pages used for memmap
DMA zone: 0 pages reserved
DMA zone: 4064 pages, LIFO batch:0
Normal zone: 1760 pages used for memmap
Normal zone: 223520 pages, LIFO batch:31
HighMem zone: 3839 pages used for memmap
HighMem zone: 487569 pages, LIFO batch:31
DMI present.
ACPI: RSDP (v000 ACPIAM ) @ 0x000f9f40
ACPI: RSDT (v001 ACRSYS ACRPRDCT 0x20080507 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0xaff90000
ACPI: FADT (v002 ACRSYS A c e r 0x20080507 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0xaff90200
ACPI: MADT (v001 ACRSYS A c e r 0x20080507 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0xaff90390
ACPI: MCFG (v001 ACRSYS OEMMCFG 0x20080507 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0xaff90400
ACPI: SLIC (v001 ACRSYS ACRPRDCT 0x20080507 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0xaff90440
ACPI: OEMB (v001 ACRSYS A c e r 0x20080507 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0xaff9e040
ACPI: HPET (v001 ACRSYS OEMHPET 0x20080507 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0xaff95900
ACPI: ASF! (v032 AMD SB600ASF 0x00000001 INTL 0x20051117) @ 0xaff95940
ACPI: AWMI (v001 ACRSYS A c e r 0x20080507 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0xaff9e0c0
ACPI: SSDT (v001 A M I POWERNOW 0x00000001 AMD 0x00000001) @ 0xaff95a80
ACPI: DSDT (v001 7B4A1 7B4A1C29 0x00000c29 INTL 0x20051117) @ 0x00000000
ATI board detected. Disabling timer routing over 8254.
ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x808
ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x01] lapic_id[0x00] enabled)
Processor #0 15:11 APIC version 16
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x02] lapic_id[0x01] enabled)
Processor #1 15:11 APIC version 16
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x03] lapic_id[0x82] disabled)
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x04] lapic_id[0x83] disabled)
ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x02] address[0xfec00000] gsi_base[0])
IOAPIC[0]: apic_id 2, version 33, address 0xfec00000, GSI 0-23
ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 0 global_irq 2 dfl dfl)
ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 9 global_irq 9 low level)
ACPI: IRQ0 used by override.
ACPI: IRQ2 used by override.
ACPI: IRQ9 used by override.
Enabling APIC mode: Flat. Using 1 I/O APICs
ACPI: HPET id: 0x8300 base: 0xfed00000
Using ACPI (MADT) for SMP configuration information
Allocating PCI resources starting at b8000000 (gap: b0000000:4ff00000)
Detected 2299.285 MHz processor.
Built 1 zonelists. Total pages: 715153
Kernel command line: ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 initrd=minirt.gz nomce loglevel=0 quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix BOOT_IMAGE=linux
mapped APIC to ffffd000 (fee00000)
mapped IOAPIC to ffffc000 (fec00000)
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Initializing CPU#0
PID hash table entries: 4096 (order: 12, 16384 bytes)
Console: colour dummy device 80x25
Dentry cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Memory: 2852816k/2883136k available (2747k kernel code, 29004k reserved, 958k data, 336k init, 1965632k highmem)
virtual kernel memory layout:
fixmap : 0xffe16000 - 0xfffff000 (1956 kB)
pkmap : 0xff800000 - 0xffc00000 (4096 kB)
vmalloc : 0xf8800000 - 0xff7fe000 ( 111 MB)
lowmem : 0xc0000000 - 0xf8000000 ( 896 MB)
.init : 0xc04a6000 - 0xc04fa000 ( 336 kB)
.data : 0xc03aef9c - 0xc049e7b4 ( 958 kB)
.text : 0xc0100000 - 0xc03aef9c (2747 kB)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.
Using HPET for base-timer
Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 4590.84 BogoMIPS (lpj=9181680)
Security Framework v1.0.0 initialized
SELinux: Disabled at boot.
Capability LSM initialized
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
CPU: After generic identify, caps: 178bfbff ebd3fbff 00000000 00000000 00002001 00000000 0000011f
CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 512K (64 bytes/line)
CPU 0(2) -> Core 0
CPU: After all inits, caps: 178bfbff ebd3fbff 00000000 00000410 00002001 00000000 0000011f
Compat vDSO mapped to ffffe000.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
Checking for popad bug... OK.
SMP alternatives: switching to UP code
ACPI: Core revision 20060707
CPU0: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+ stepping 02
SMP alternatives: switching to SMP code
Booting processor 1/1 eip 3000
Initializing CPU#1
Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 4587.39 BogoMIPS (lpj=9174796)
CPU: After generic identify, caps: 178bfbff ebd3fbff 00000000 00000000 00002001 00000000 0000011f
CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 512K (64 bytes/line)
CPU 1(2) -> Core 1
CPU: After all inits, caps: 178bfbff ebd3fbff 00000000 00000410 00002001 00000000 0000011f
CPU1: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+ stepping 02
Total of 2 processors activated (9178.23 BogoMIPS).
ENABLING IO-APIC IRQs
..TIMER: vector=0x31 apic1=0 pin1=2 apic2=-1 pin2=-1
checking TSC synchronization across 2 CPUs:
CPU#0 had 298 usecs TSC skew, fixed it up.
CPU#1 had -298 usecs TSC skew, fixed it up.
Brought up 2 CPUs
migration_cost=205
checking if image is initramfs...it isn't (no cpio magic); looks like an initrd
Freeing initrd memory: 1188k freed
NET: Registered protocol family 16
EISA bus registered
ACPI: bus type pci registered
PCI: BIOS Bug: MCFG area at e0000000 is not E820-reserved
PCI: Not using MMCONFIG.
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 3.00 entry at 0xf0031, last bus=4
PCI: Using configuration type 1
Setting up standard PCI resources
ACPI: Interpreter enabled
ACPI: Using IOAPIC for interrupt routing
Error attaching device data
Error attaching device data
Error attaching device data
Error attaching device data
ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (0000:00)
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
PCI: Ignoring BAR0-3 of IDE controller 0000:00:14.1
Boot video device is 0000:01:05.0
PCI: Transparent bridge - 0000:00:14.4
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P1._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.PCE5._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.PCE6._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0PC._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 4 7 10 *11 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs 4 7 10 *11 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 4 7 *10 11 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 4 7 *10 11 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKE] (IRQs 4 7 10 11 14 15) *0, disabled.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKF] (IRQs 4 7 10 11 14 15) *0, disabled.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKG] (IRQs 4 7 *10 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKH] (IRQs 4 7 10 11 14 15) *0, disabled.
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
pnp: PnP ACPI init
pnp: PnP ACPI: found 15 devices
PnPBIOS: Disabled by ACPI PNP
SCSI subsystem initialized
libata version 2.00 loaded.
PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing
PCI: If a device doesn't work, try "pci=routeirq". If it helps, post a report
NetLabel: Initializing
NetLabel: domain hash size = 128
NetLabel: protocols = UNLABELED CIPSOv4
NetLabel: unlabeled traffic allowed by default
pnp: 00:0c: ioport range 0xe00-0xe0f has been reserved
pnp: 00:0c: ioport range 0xe80-0xe8f has been reserved
pnp: 00:0c: ioport range 0xf40-0xf4f has been reserved
pnp: 00:0c: ioport range 0xa30-0xa3f has been reserved
PCI: Ignore bogus resource 6 [0:0] of 0000:01:05.0
PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:01.0
IO window: d000-dfff
MEM window: fe800000-fe9fffff
PREFETCH window: d0000000-dfffffff
PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:05.0
IO window: e000-efff
MEM window: fea00000-feafffff
PREFETCH window: disabled.
PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:06.0
IO window: disabled.
MEM window: feb00000-febfffff
PREFETCH window: disabled.
PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:14.4
IO window: disabled.
MEM window: disabled.
PREFETCH window: disabled.
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:05.0 to 64
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:06.0 to 64
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP route cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 131072 (order: 8, 1572864 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 65536 (order: 7, 786432 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 131072 bind 65536)
TCP reno registered
audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled)
audit(1229639511.628:1): initialized
highmem bounce pool size: 64 pages
Total HugeTLB memory allocated, 0
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
fuse init (API version 7.8)
fuse distribution version: 2.6.1
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler anticipatory registered
io scheduler deadline registered (default)
io scheduler cfq registered
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:05.0 to 64
pcie_portdrv_probe->Dev[7915:1002] has invalid IRQ. Check vendor BIOS
assign_interrupt_mode Found MSI capability
Allocate Port Service[0000:00:05.0cie00]
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:06.0 to 64
pcie_portdrv_probe->Dev[7916:1002] has invalid IRQ. Check vendor BIOS
assign_interrupt_mode Found MSI capability
Allocate Port Service[0000:00:06.0cie00]
vesafb: framebuffer at 0xd0000000, mapped to 0xf8880000, using 3072k, total 16384k
vesafb: mode is 1024x768x16, linelength=2048, pages=9
vesafb: protected mode interface info at c000:a0be
vesafb: pmi: set display start = c00ca148, set palette = c00ca206
vesafb: scrolling: redraw
vesafb: Truecolor: size=0:5:6:5, shift=0:11:5:0
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 128x48
fb0: VESA VGA frame buffer device
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Real Time Clock Driver v1.12ac
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
floppy0: no floppy controllers found
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 100000K size 1024 blocksize
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
Probing IDE interface ide0...
Probing IDE interface ide1...
Loading iSCSI transport class v2.0-724.<6>PNP: PS/2 Controller [PNP0303:PS2K,PNP0f03:PS2M] at 0x60,0x64 irq 0,0
PNP: PS/2 controller doesn't have KBD irq; using default 1
PNP: PS/2 controller doesn't have AUX irq; using default 12
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
EISA: Probing bus 0 at eisa.0
Cannot allocate resource for EISA slot 8
EISA: Detected 0 cards.
Initializing XFRM netlink socket
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 15
Using IPI No-Shortcut mode
ACPI: (supports S0 S1 S3 S4 S5)
Time: hpet clocksource has been installed.
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /class/input/input0
input: ImPS/2 Generic Wheel Mouse as /class/input/input1
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
EXT2-fs warning: checktime reached, running e2fsck is recommended
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
Failed initialization of WD-7000 SCSI card!
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
usbcore: registered new device driver usb
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:12.2[B] -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
ehci_hcd 0000:00:12.2: EHCI Host Controller
ehci_hcd 0000:00:12.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
ehci_hcd 0000:00:12.2: debug port 1
ehci_hcd 0000:00:12.2: irq 16, io mem 0xfe7ff000
ehci_hcd 0000:00:12.2: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00, driver 10 Dec 2004
usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 6 ports detected
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:13.2[B] -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
ehci_hcd 0000:00:13.2: EHCI Host Controller
ehci_hcd 0000:00:13.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
ehci_hcd 0000:00:13.2: debug port 1
ehci_hcd 0000:00:13.2: irq 17, io mem 0xfe7fa800
ehci_hcd 0000:00:13.2: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00, driver 10 Dec 2004
usb usb2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 2-0:1.0: 6 ports detected
USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v3.0
ohci_hcd: 2006 August 04 USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver (PCI)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:12.0[A] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
ohci_hcd 0000:00:12.0: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:12.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
ohci_hcd 0000:00:12.0: irq 18, io mem 0xfe7fe000
usb usb3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 3-0:1.0: 3 ports detected
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:12.1[A] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
ohci_hcd 0000:00:12.1: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:12.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 4
ohci_hcd 0000:00:12.1: irq 18, io mem 0xfe7fd000
usb usb4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 4-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 4-0:1.0: 3 ports detected
usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:13.0[A] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
ohci_hcd 0000:00:13.0: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:13.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 5
ohci_hcd 0000:00:13.0: irq 19, io mem 0xfe7fc000
usb usb5: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 5-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 5-0:1.0: 3 ports detected
usb 1-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:13.1[A] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
ohci_hcd 0000:00:13.1: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:13.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 6
ohci_hcd 0000:00:13.1: irq 19, io mem 0xfe7fb000
usb usb6: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 6-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 6-0:1.0: 3 ports detected
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:14.5[C] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
ohci_hcd 0000:00:14.5: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:14.5: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 7
ohci_hcd 0000:00:14.5: irq 19, io mem 0xfe7f9000
usb 1-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
usb usb7: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 7-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 7-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
usb 1-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
usb 1-5: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 2
usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
usbcore: registered new interface driver libusual
usbcore: registered new interface driver hiddev
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.6:USB HID core driver
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 3
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 4
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 5
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
scsi3 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 2
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
ieee1394: Initialized config rom entry `ip1394'
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:03:00.0[A] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:03:00.0 to 64
ohci1394: fw-host0: OHCI-1394 1.1 (PCI): IRQ=[19] MMIO=[febff800-febfffff] Max Packet=[2048] IR/IT contexts=[4/4]
ieee1394: sbp2: Driver forced to serialize I/O (serialize_io=1)
ieee1394: sbp2: Try serialize_io=0 for better performance
ieee1394: Host added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023] GUID[00815d4d00016c20]
scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access Ut165 USB2FlashStorage 0.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access USB Flash Memory PMAP PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
SCSI device sda: 15794176 512-byte hdwr sectors (8087 MB)
SCSI device sdb: 3905536 512-byte hdwr sectors (2000 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 00 00 00 00
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sda: 15794176 512-byte hdwr sectors (8087 MB)
SCSI device sdb: 3905536 512-byte hdwr sectors (2000 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 00 00 00 00
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
sda:<5>sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
sdb:<5>scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access Generic USB SD Reader 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
sdb1
sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdb
usb-storage: device scan complete
sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdc
scsi 3:0:0:1: Direct-Access Generic USB CF Reader 1.01 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
sd 3:0:0:1: Attached scsi removable disk sdd
scsi 3:0:0:2: Direct-Access Generic USB SM Reader 1.02 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
sd 3:0:0:2: Attached scsi removable disk sde
scsi 3:0:0:3: Direct-Access Generic USB MS Reader 1.03 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
unknown partition table
sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sda
usb-storage: device scan complete
sd 3:0:0:3: Attached scsi removable disk sdf
usb-storage: device scan complete
scsi 1:0:0:0: CD-ROM PHILIPS DVDR1648P1 P2.2 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 48x/48x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
sr 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
usb-storage: device scan complete
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
cloop: Initializing cloop v2.05
cloop: loaded (max 8 devices)
cloop: /cdrom/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX: 15599 blocks, 131072 bytes/block, largest block is 131098 bytes.
cloop: loaded 256 blocks into cache.
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
aufs 2.6.19-20061211
Freeing unused kernel memory: 336k freed
ACPI: Power Button (FF) [PWRF]
ACPI: Power Button (CM) [PWRB]
Using specific hotkey driver
ACPI: Processor [P001] (supports 8 throttling states)
ACPI Exception (acpi_processor-0681): AE_NOT_FOUND, Processor Device is not present [20060707]
ACPI: Getting cpuindex for acpiid 0x3
ACPI Exception (acpi_processor-0681): AE_NOT_FOUND, Processor Device is not present [20060707]
ACPI: Getting cpuindex for acpiid 0x4
ACPI: Thermal Zone [THRM] (32 C)
cpufreq: No nForce2 chipset.
powernow: This module only works with AMD K7 CPUs
powernow-k8: Found 2 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+ processors (version 2.00.00)
powernow-k8: 0 : fid 0xf (2300 MHz), vid 0x9
powernow-k8: 1 : fid 0xe (2200 MHz), vid 0xa
powernow-k8: 2 : fid 0xc (2000 MHz), vid 0xc
powernow-k8: 3 : fid 0xa (1800 MHz), vid 0xe
powernow-k8: 4 : fid 0x2 (1000 MHz), vid 0x12
eth1394: eth0: IEEE-1394 IPv4 over 1394 Ethernet (fw-host0)
sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
sd 3:0:0:1: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
sd 3:0:0:2: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0
sd 3:0:0:3: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0
sr 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg6 type 5
Linux agpgart interface v0.101 (c) Dave Jones
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
shpchp: Standard Hot Plug PCI Controller Driver version: 0.4
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:14.2[A] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
NET: Registered protocol family 17
device-mapper: ioctl: 4.10.0-ioctl (2006-09-14) initialised: dm-devel@redhat.com
NET: Registered protocol family 10
lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions
Mobile IPv6
hda-intel: Invalid position buffer, using LPIB read method instead.
FAT: Did not find valid FSINFO signature.
Found signature1 0x50434128 signature2 0x4d442020 (sector = 1)
usb 1-2: USB disconnect, address 3
usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
usb 1-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 6
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access USB Flash Memory PMAP PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
SCSI device sdb: 3905536 512-byte hdwr sectors (2000 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sdb: 3905536 512-byte hdwr sectors (2000 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
sdb: sdb1
sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdb
sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
usb-storage: device scan complete
EFS: 1.0a - http://aeschi.ch.eu.org/efs/
usb 1-2: USB disconnect, address 6
usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 7
usb 1-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
scsi5 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 7
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
scsi 5:0:0:0: Direct-Access USB Flash Memory PMAP PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
SCSI device sdb: 3905536 512-byte hdwr sectors (2000 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sdb: 3905536 512-byte hdwr sectors (2000 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
sdb: sdb1
sd 5:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdb
sd 5:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
usb-storage: device scan complete

Do you, seriously, expect me to read through all your log for you?

You might be "Completely Clueless", but I am sure you are not "Completely Useless".

Please Read.. Trim.. Edit.. Search.. Search again.. Post links.. Tell us what you have tried, and why it did not work for you.

Then I'll be happy to help you

THanks. Well this is the line that seems to me, Clueless though I am, to give rise to some concern:

"Failed initialization of WD-7000 SCSI card!"

I'm not entirely sure what it means, but presumably the WD refers to the HD drive manufacturer, Western Digital.

BTW, are you of the view that BOTH controllers are faulty? I mean the HDD and the CD/DVD drive?

Thanks.

CC.

You Read, Edited ..Posted

Did you search for Linux Failed initialization of WD-7000 SCSI card ?

Often, one disk controller is used to control more than one device. If the controller is broken, then more than one device will fail to work correctly.

But read your search results. Some of them are really OLD (1994), so it could well be that your disk controller is indeed broken, rather than linux being at fault, especially as you say in post #1 that it used to work.

Yes, I did search for that string and saw a lot of hits, but NONE of them made the slightest sense to me. The terminology to me is completely foreign. My background is in analogue/linear electronics and I haven't the slightest idea what a "disk controller" consists of in reality. It might be hardware, firmware, half-software or vitual for all I know.

The only thing I can say for sure is that the Linux CD and DVD distros I have worked fine on this machine just a few weeks ago and if it were a power supply instability I would expect the boot-ups/installs not to fail at exactly the same point every time. I note somebody else reports on these forums that WD tech support told him: "Western Digital drives don't work with Linux" but I find that impossible to believe unless they're purposely sabotaged to discriminate against Linux. Even then, a faulty HDD wouldn't account for the inability of a live CD which doesn't need ANY HDD to boot up.

Thanks for your input, by the way. It helps to clarify my thinking.

CC.

So the inference is that something is now broken, and it is unlikely to be linux.
This is simply not true.
The HDD may be perfectly fine. As I said earlier "Often, one disk controller is used to control more than one device."

Your hardware probably looks like this (WARNING, bad ASCII art follows)So you can now see how, if your disk controller is broken, neither your HDD nor your CD-ROM will work properly: The HDD and Internal CD-ROM share the same disk controller.

BUT if you boot from a USB-CD-ROM the Disk Controller is bypassed, and it'll maybe boot, with linux running entirely in memory, but linux will not be able to see either your HDD or CD-ROM, or they may be "seen", but still "not work" (it depends on the nature of the failure).

Some linux distros may fail if they are unable to access your HDD when they think they should be able to, or there is a (possibly obscure) failure reading from the internal CD-ROM.

In this respect knoppix seems to have managed as best as it could. It detected your D-7000 SCSI card but could not initialise it.

So the card is announcing itself correctly, but not responding to the initialisation request(s). So knoppix just ignored it and booted up regardless.

Thanks; the diagram is quite helpful.
Well I bit the bullet and did what someone else suggested as a test earlier in the thread. I've tried to install Windoze XP on the HDD via the internal CD/DVD drive and it has reportedly gone in fine, much to my surprise!
However, when using this installation with Nero to burn another image of Debian with the computer's own internal CD/DVD drive, it reported that the copy completed WITH errors so I'm still largley clueless as to exactly what is at fault. :-(

Update: have just burned Slax 6.0.7 live CD on EXTERNAL burner and it reported the copy proceded with NO errors. However, booting this new disk from the same, External CD/DVD drive STILL failed to get beyond the first 20 seconds of boot-up!

I did this just to eliminate the possibility that (as someone suggested earlier) disks burned on one burner don't always work on other burners.

I wonder what the best program is for testing CD/DVD drives and controllers?