[SOLVED] HP DV74008CA Slackware 13.37 Won't boot

DrTardis · 07-15-2011, 10:07 AM

Hello everyone,

I've installed Slackware 13.37 on my HP DV74008CA and while it is trying to boot up it stops at

Code:

fsck from util-linux 2.19
mounting non-root local filesystems
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)

and wait for around 5 minutes before finally

Code:

INFO: task rc.S:1667 blocked for more than 120 seconds.  
"echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message.

then it goes into a few call traces which are unreadable to me. Keep in mind I typed this off the screen by hand.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated and thanks for your time

business_kid · 07-15-2011, 11:28 AM

Quote:

INFO: task rc.S:1667 blocked for more than 120 seconds.

Something has gone out to lunch. It's PID 1667, because there's only 300 odd lines in rc.S

You have 2 possible options next. Try both
1. Try a different kernel. Boot from the install dvd/cd, and use a line like
boot: huge.s rdinit= root=your/root/device ro

2. using your own kernel, use your standard boot line with init=/bin/bash appended
You may be thrown into a rather truculent terminal with the root filesystem in read only. Run

Quote:

mount -o remount,rw /
. /etc/profile.d/*.sh
mount -a

and you'll be somewhere near normal with nothing started. Then look around.

DrTardis · 07-15-2011, 12:22 PM

Quote:

1. Try a different kernel. Boot from the install dvd/cd, and use a line like
boot: huge.s rdinit= root=your/root/device ro

The same result as I described in my first post

Quote:

2. using your own kernel, use your standard boot line with init=/bin/bash appended
You may be thrown into a rather truculent terminal with the root filesystem in read only and you'll be somewhere near normal with nothing started. Then look around.

That got me to a bash and I ran the commands you mentioned the output was
EXT4-fs (sda3): re-mounted. Opts: (null)
mount: mount point /dev/pts does not exist
mount: mount point /dev/shm does not exist

I don't know what to look for or what this error might be related to but at least I can type commands again

If you have any ideas on what to do next I'd appreciate it.

DrTardis · 07-15-2011, 04:30 PM

I reinstalled and had the same problem. Then I removed my two ntfs partitions from fstab and when I tried a normal boot it hung at mounting /dev/shm. I hard rebooted after it began giving trace calls similar to the ones from before. I was going to type out the full lines when it hung but this time I got an error

Code:

Mounting non-root local filesystems:
EXT4-fs warning(device sda3): dx_probe:363: unrecognised inode hash code 12
EXT4-fs warning(device sda3): dx_probe:471: Corrupt dir inode 12, running e2fsck is recommended.

It then started with task grep blocked for 120 seconds and began call traces so I rebooted again and it hung at

Code:

Checking non-root filesystems
fsck from util-linux 2.19

as it has most times.

markush · 07-15-2011, 04:50 PM

Hello DrTardis,

if /dev/sda3 is your / (root)-filesystem you should use the fsck (fsck.ext4) tool when the Install-CD is booted. But I'd suspect that either the disk is damaged or the filesystem is damaged, but since you performed a reinstall without fixing the error it is likely the disk.

Markus

DrTardis · 07-15-2011, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by markush

Hello DrTardis,

if /dev/sda3 is your / (root)-filesystem you should use the fsck (fsck.ext4) tool when the Install-CD is booted. But I'd suspect that either the disk is damaged or the filesystem is damaged, but since you performed a reinstall without fixing the error it is likely the disk.

Markus

Hey Markus thanks, for trying to help me out.
I don't think it's the disk seeing as I used it just the other day to install the os on my desktop, which I am on now, with no problems and the image I used to burn the install dvd was md5 checked I installed it on my laptop for the first time only minutes after I completed my desktop installation but of course have started over 4 times since starting to install it on my laptop. I'm going to go try using fsck from the dvd and If you can think of any other possibilities I'd love to hear them.

DrTardis · 07-15-2011, 09:07 PM

I finally finished running fsck.ext4 on my 4 partitions
fsck.ext4 /dev/sda1

Code:

/sbin/e2fsck: Superblock invalid, trying backup blocks...
/sbin/e2fsck: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda1

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem.  If the device is valid and it really
contains an ext2 filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock is corrupt, and you might try
running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
        e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

fsck.ext4 /dev/sda2 was the same as sda1

fsck.ext4 /dev/sda3

Code:

/dev/sda3: recovering journal
Superblock last mount time is in the future
       (by less than a day, probably due to the hardware clock being incorrectly set fix<y>?
/dev/sda3: clean, 295692/1191360 files, 1513787/4763774 blocks

fsck.ext4 /dev/sda4(swap) had the same output as sda1&2

That inconsistency with the hardware clock is probably me picking local time for my hardware clock and then starting windoze But that wouldn't be causing this would it?
Reconfigured Slackware via the installers setup script and changed the hardware clock to utc ran fsck.ext4 to fix the superblock error it didn't change anything but when I rebooted again and used fsck.ext4 again it had the same superblock error after trying another fsck and reboot it was still there. I hope any of this is useful XD

Cheers

markush · 07-16-2011, 01:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrTardis

Hey Markus thanks, for trying to help me out.
I don't think it's the disk seeing as I used it just the other day to install the os on my desktop, which I am on now, with no problems and the image I used to burn the install dvd was md5 checked I installed it on my laptop for the first time only minutes after I completed my desktop installation but of course have started over 4 times since starting to install it on my laptop.
...

You've missunderstood what I mean. I did not mean that the installation-DVD is damaged but the harddisk of the computer.

Quote:

That inconsistency with the hardware clock is probably me picking local time for my hardware clock and then starting windoze But that wouldn't be causing this would it?

No, you're right the clock-settings have nothing to do with your problem.

Markus

DrTardis · 07-16-2011, 02:00 AM

Hello again markush thanks for getting back to me.

Sorry about that I should have realized by disk and not disc my mistake

Do you have any suggestions on how to verify if the drive is damaged or not? Could it be just a bad partition table, I have been running windows on it for around 8 months. I don't know if it's relevant or not but I did delete my recovery partition and the hp tools partition and repartitioned the free space for my ext4 and swap partitions.

markush · 07-16-2011, 02:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrTardis

Could it be just a bad partition table

Well, I don't think so. What you can do is getting another harddisk and try it out, if with another disk the machine works properly, then the old disk is damaged.

Another thing would be to setup the disk completely new. Boot a live-CD (the Slackware-install-DVD) and then delete all partitions, create new ones and then create filesystems, but "with badblock checking", you will find this option in the Slackware-installer. Maybe you're lucky if you create the / partition for Slackware on an other "part" of the disk (use /dev/sda1 for / instead of /dev/sda3).
But if the installer finds "bad blocks" you should substitute the harddrive with a new one.

Another possibility: use memcheck (on many Linux-live-CDs there is a program to check the RAM) maybe before buying a new disk you should try that out, bad memory can lead to subtle failures.
Otherwise, if any Live-CD runs fine on the machine, it should be the harddrive which causes the issue.

Markus

business_kid · 07-16-2011, 03:23 AM

To clear up some things: windows usually resets the hardware clock by an hour or so when you reboot into it. If it was rweset by over a day, that points to the date being wrong in one system.
I am presuming windows is on the same hard disk, so it's not totally lost. Also be aware that the superblock message comes up when you set e2fsck

I would boot on the install cd once, and try a session as follows. Save the output if you can, or note the main points.

Quote:

mount /dev/your_root /mnt
cat /mnt/etc/fstab |grep ext
e2fsck -fcv <each one>

e2fsck is fussy about how it's called. Those options will run badblocks, and test the filesystem. It's slow, and will prompt you. If you get the superblock message from a partition I would also try

Quote:

mount -t auto /dev/whatsit /wherever

as if you have partition numbers mixed up (Unlikely but possible) you will get a clear answer as to what partition type it is.

markush · 07-16-2011, 03:39 AM

Hello,

referring to the post of business_kid, you should also post the output of

Code:

fdisk -l

which is the partitiontable.

Markus

DrTardis · 07-16-2011, 07:28 PM

Firstly thanks a bunch to both of you for your patients and time

I'm writing this post as I do each step since I have no idea what arguments I'd use to keep a log or where that log would even be written to.
Booted from 13.37 install DVD choosing the default options until I got to a bash

Code:

:/#mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
:/#cat /mnt/etc/fstab |grep ext
/dev/sda3       /       ext4     defaults   1  1
:/#e2fsck -fcv /dev/sda3
WARNING!!! The filesystem is mounted. You will destroy everything.  y/n?  I decided n would be the right choice here :) 
:/#umount /mnt
:/#e2fsck -fcv /dev/sda3
e2fsck 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
Checking for bad blocks (read-only test): 

/dev/sda3: File system was modified

295689 inodes used 24.82%
25 non-contiguous files 0.0%
116 non-contiguous dirs 0.0%
    # of inodes with ind/dind/tind/ blocks: 0/0/0
    extend depth histogram: 271083/16
1513786 blocks used 31.78%
0 bad blocks
1 large file

252190 regular files
18818 directories
2036 character device files
7847 block device files
1 fifo
3265 links
14788 symbolic links (14696 fast symbolic links)
0 sockets
____
298945 files

:/#fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 gb, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x097042e2

Device      Boot   Start       End           Blocks      Id       System
/dev/sda1   *      2048        409599        203776      7        HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2          409600      929662975     464626688   7        HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3          929662976   967773167     19055096    83       Linux
/dev/sda4          967773168   976773167     4500000     82       Linux swap

:/#mount -t auto /dev/sda3 /mnt
:/#cd /mnt
:/#ls  
Boot/  Win/  bin/  boot/  dev/  etc/  home/  lib/  lib64/  lost+found/
media/  mnt/  opt/  proc/  root/  sbin/  srv/  sys/  tmp/  usr/  var/

I should probably also mention that I used the slow format for sda3 during installation and when I added my swap I said yes when it asked to check the long way.

business_kid · 07-17-2011, 03:17 AM

That's better.

There were problems on your disk. You know about them because it asked you about fixing them unless they were minor. So your disk should work, and we'll get back to looking at your startup error. All the options are chosen from man pages

man e2fsck

gives you the whole deal.
To proceed from here, let's use belt & braces. Edit /etc/fstab, and put a # in front of the lines NTFS partitions if they are showing. In addition to disks, I have these

Code:

devpts  /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620   0   0
proc  /proc   proc    defaults  0   0
tmpfs    /dev/shm  tmpfs defaults  0   0

which are (important)standard slackware install stuff. Then reboot and see.

DrTardis · 07-17-2011, 03:38 AM

My fstab has exactly what you posted plus
/dev/sda4 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sda3 / ext4 defaults 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner 0 0
I already removed the lines for my two ntfs partitions but it is a bit weird that there is a fd0 in there since I don't have a floppy drive in my laptop one other thing is e2fsck didn't ask me to fix any errors so hopefully that is a good thing