2005 Freezes on startup

On random occasions, Mandriva just locks up. It gets just past the bootloader and to the screen with the penguin face. The loading bar in the lower left doesn't do anything, even after waiting for a while. I hit "ESC" to see verbose mode and it just says press "I" to enter interactive startup mode. Hitting that key does nothing. I hit CTRL+ALT+F(1-9) and there was no additional information on any of the screens (most were just black screens). Hitting CTRL+ALT+DEL or CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE at this point didn't seem to do anything so I had to hit the power switch to get out.

This only happens on seemlingly random occasions. Then next time this happens, what can I do to assess what is happening and what is going wrong so that I can find a solution to this problem?

I bet your hardrive is getting ready to crap out. Try running a hardrive utility for your drive and see what happens.

Oh, I rememberd that I recently added a new 10GB partition that exists on a second harddrive (I used Mandriva's partitioning tool). I am not sure if the problem I described above existed before this. Until recently, I don't believe this harddrive was ever in use. I set the mount point at /mount/hdc and it is just used for backing up files. Is it possible that the problem is with the second harddrive. I do not know if Mandriva makes any attempt during bootup to mount this partition or use this harddrive in anyway. Could that be my problem?

That could be your problem. Most harddrive manufacturers have a bootable floppy harddrive utility that tests your drive for errors. Find one for your harddrive and run the diagnostics. That will either confirm or eliminate the harddrive as the problem.