Probably not where ldconfig is, but ldconfig is reading A LOT of the drive, basically through all of the libs and then building the linker cache, so its reading over those badblocks and horking. Now that's my guess.

My own drive wasn't the OS drive, just 1 of 4 in the crate, replaced it with a 200 for .5Tb (whew, half a terabyte is fun!) Anyway, It started horfing errors to dmesg when it hit the Slackware ISOs in a cp -a /old/drive/mnt /new/drive/mnt

When it got to the Solaris ISOs it hung the machine, so I just cp -a'd around those. The log on the hang was similar to the log for the failure on cp of the Slack CDs.

Anyway, my drive had had badblocks forever, basically since a while after the warranty ran out But yours is still live!

Cheers,

Finegan

Gotcha.

Thanks again, hopefully Dell will hook me up with a nice new disk.

Cheers.

After a suggestion from someone on the dell forum, i ran the Dell diagnostic utility. It returned no disk errors whatsoever.

How accurate is the "badblocks" command?

Could anyone recommend another utility i could use to test for bad blocks?

Thanks.

Somethng's really odd - your SMART output for the Temperature line showsNow I doubt that the drive actually hit 2200 degrees C as it would be little more than a pudlle under your notebook.

I think ive made a mistake earlier on in this thread.

I ran badblocks whilest the partition was still mounted, it returned two bad blocks on the partition.

I think badblocks must be run whilest the partition is unmounted, so i booted to knoppix and ran badblocks again. This time it scanned through a lot more blocks and returned 0 bad blocks.
I also ran e2fsck from knoppix and it returned no bad blocks either. The Dell Diagnostic utilities and the Drive Fitness Test from Hitachi return no errors.

Just to recap, when i boot the system it sometimes hangs. Currently when it hangs, it hangs at "Loading Shared Libraries - /sbin/ldconfig". If this occurs, im forced to switch off the laptop and switch it back on again. As the volume wasnt cleanly unmounted, linux performs fsck. It finds errors (about 4 or 5 lines about inodes) and fixes them. Linux automatically reboots and when it comes to Loading Shared Libraries, it works.

I say "currently" when referring to ldconfig above because ive had the same problem before, with different commands. First it happened when loading gpm, so i stopped it from loading alltogether (i dont need it). Same story with loading the keyboard map, and then acpi. Ive since turned loading the keyboard map off, and booting with the pci=noacpi boot option.

Ive tried a full format of the partition and have completely reinstalled linux but the same problems still persist.

If this was a software problem, surely there wouldnt be this inconsistency?
But if its a hardware problem, why are no utilities (apart from running badblocks on the root filesystem when its mounted - dont know if your meant to do this) picking up any problems with the disk?

I dont know if this is purely coincidence, but the system only seems to hang when the computers been switched off for a while (ie switching it on for the first time that day, or after a few hours of it not being used). If ive been using the system and shut it down then start it up again, it seems to load fine.

Again, i cant help but think its a hardware problem, but i need proof if ive to get a new hard disk off of Dell on warranty! I cant see them giving me one when no diagnostic utility is giving me errors.

Is what mcleodnine pointed out above proof that something's funny with my hard disk?

Im really lost here.... I dont know where my problem lies!

Thanks everyone.

I was running out of space on my linux partition so i booted to windows and launched partition magic to take some space from swap to give it to the root filesystem.

I booted back to linux and as soon as i selected linux from lilo all i got was:

Loading Linux . . . . . . . . . . .

Then it hangs. Cant boot into linux at all now. Whats happening?!?

Urgh...

bump

Okay, if all of that succeeded clean I'm willing to concede that before I was on crack, I'm just curious really, what's the step following ldconfig? It might have completed compiling the linking cache and maybe its the next step its horfling on and doesn't even get to echo.

Or... there's a mess in the libraries somewhere. It might be worth installing around the problem if its just a pile of messed up libs...

Cheers,

Finegan

Im unsure as to what the next step was after ldconfig as i can no longer boot into linux. (Freezing at Loading Linux).

I contacted Dell about the issue but im disheartened at their reply:

"I see that the hard drive passes diagnostics. This indicates that the system hardware is functioning fine.

Also, please Note that Dell does not support dual-boot or change of operating system. This is because, your Dell computer is tested, validated, and optimized for the operating system that shipped with your computer. In addition, Dell Support Technicians are trained to support your computer with the operating system and hardware configuration as it shipped from the Dell factory. If you have modified your system from its original configuration, you may experience conflicts that were not discovered in Dell's testing. For these reasons, we generally encourage that you maintain the operating system that shipped with your system.

NOTE: Dell supports systems in their original configuration only.

For any further hardware issues or queries with your system, please do write in to us. We would be glad to provide further assistance."


Im pretty convinced its a hardware problem, theres too many things going wrong for it to be a software issue surely. And like i mentioned above, i didnt change anything in linux before i resized its partiton and now its freezing at Loading Linux.

As my laptop is still under warranty, id like to get this sorted out before it expires. Also before the first new semester starts back at uni, i need a working system by then! I cant help but feel that Dell are trying to give me the run around, they seem to be passing the blame to linux and not their hardware. I requested a replacement hard drive in my initial communication to Dell, and understandably they asked me to try some diagnostics, but i hope my case for a replacement doesnt hinge purely on the results from these tests.

Im unsure where i stand in this matter, could someone offer me any advice as to what im entitled to? If its a software problem then great, but if its a hardware problem i dont appriciate Dell passing the buck because their hardware's went faulty after only a few months and after ive paid so much money.

I really appriciate everyones help in this matter.

Thanks.

Can you get your hands on a bootable CD Distro?

http://www.sysresccd.org/
http://www.knoppix.org/
(Where is damnsmall linux these days?)

With these you can boot from the CD and have access to a fistfull of diagnostic and repair tools.

Yep, i have knoppix. Ive already ran fsck, badblocks and e2fsck from knoppix, on my unmounted root filesystem. They returned no errors.

Am I being silly thinking its a disk problem when none of these returns errors? I just find it hard to believe that all these unpredictable problems are occuring due to a software issue. Surely it cant be a sottware issue when linux freezes at Loading Linux when ive not altered any linux software since it last worked (or at least got me as far as loading ldconfig)? I kept the whole linux variable the same, the only thing i changed was the partition size and that was from windows (Partition Magic). Not even mention the problems that i was having prior to this happening.

Thanks mcleodnine.

bump

Sorry to bump again, but i really need some advice as to what to do next. Im unsure as to what my reply should be to Dell. I feel confident that a new hard disk would resolve my problems, but would Dell play ball if i cant provide them with errors from diagnostic output?

I can boot linux now, however only via the slackware cdrom "bareacpi.i boot=/dev/hda3 noinitrd ro". I was just poking about and decided to run fdisk. It output the following note:

Could this be the root of my problems? I dont know much about disk cylinders, could i change the value to 1024? Would this erase my data in doing so?
If its easy to do it might be worth a try?

Thanks.

Ignore that message, the 1024 limit has been gone for nearly 3 years, its just old news.

This drive issue may be fallout from partition magic, it re-arranges the C/H/S info to suit its needs. Honestly man, this just seems like a horked install, maybe its BIOS not liking the PM re-arrange of the partition order... who knows. You might want to fresh install over the old linux install, possibly just blank slate start over without parti-magic being involved, who knows, but this one is seeming more and more voodoo-riffic.

Cheers,

Finegan