Hi, lately I've experienced some unstability. Everytime I boot, there's 50:50 percent the system will get the error. If it does, every command (e.g. chmod, su, sudo, reboot, shutdown, etc) returned "Input/Output Error". The old CTRL+ALT+DEL combo also returned the error message "Cannot execute /sbin/shutdown". This happens even when I logged as root. Anybody know what the hell going on here? Do I need to reinstall it again? If I do, then probably this is the 5 consecutive time I installed it. All previous installation also got the same error. Hopefully the hard disk isn't fried or corrupted.

Thanks in advance.

From the sound of the errors and the problems you are having, there is about a 98% chance it's a damaged HDD causing it.

I recommend running smartmontools against the drive to check the drive's SMART status. Also, look at your kernel log to see if you see any specific I/O errors. It does sound like possible hard drive issues... it might also be RAM or other hardware.

Thanks guys. I'll check it out. BTW, how do I look for the kernel log? I'm not into Linux deep enough. Thanks again.

It's either the disk or the memory. I once had a problem much like this one and it turned ot to be bad RAM. You should also run memtest86 on the machine (it's a bootable floppy that tests the memory).

Generally you can read the kernel log by typing "dmesg" (no quotes) on the command line. Entries are also usually put in /var/log/messages.

Thanks guys, I'll check it out.