problems booting up

benhayman · 02-27-2008, 08:59 PM

I've been using Ubuntu for about 3-4 months now, and yesterday when I rebooted my computer it wouldn't boot up. The screen goes blank just before it goes to the login screen (which it normally does) but it never goes to the login.

I tried running it through safe-mode, and it does a check for errors, and after that it seems to think there's some kind of problem and asks me to press ctrl+D to continue, and then it goes blank like it does when I boot it up normally.

Any suggustions?

rabbit2345 · 02-27-2008, 09:09 PM

your problem might be that one of your partitions that are marked for checking on boot is failing and stopping normal booting. Can you still get to a terminal in safe mode?

benhayman · 02-27-2008, 09:20 PM

Yes, it seems to be all I can do, but I can. How do I fix that?

benhayman · 02-28-2008, 05:33 AM

Anyone have anything?

benhayman · 02-28-2008, 09:05 AM

Sorry to be so impatient, but it's my laptop I use for school. So I'd like to get it working as soon as possible.

Can anyone tell he how I'm supposed to fix this partition?

rabbit2345 · 02-28-2008, 03:50 PM

ok,

try this:

1 - start up in safe mode (or any way to get to a terminal)

2 - login as root

3 - type :

Code:

vi /etc/fstab

and you should get a text editor

BASIC INSTRUCTION ON VI
-------------------------------------------------------------------
to insert text, press Esc + i
and press enter

to save & close, press Esc + ZZ
--this means to press the escape key, hold shift and type 2 z's

and press enter

to close without saving, type ":q!" with NO quotes
(you won't believe how many people will actually include the quotes)

-------------------------------------------------------------------

if you are absolutely positive everything was fine, then one day, boom!, it's dead, then:

4 - change the numbers in the last column from (what should be) 1 1 to 0 0
--this tells the kernel not to check your HD for errors on boot (not always the best option)

--the first 1 means to check this drive on boot
--the second 1 means to check that drive first (get it?)

optionally, you can change all of your drives to be 0 0 , but then if your computer was improperly shutdown, you need to run fsck ASAP to make sure your filesystem was not severely damaged.

here's an example:

this is before

Code:

/dev/sda3/     /                    ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 1
/dev/sda4      /home                ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 2
/dev/sda1      /windows/C           ntfs-3g    user,rw               0 0
/dev/sda2      swap                 swap       defaults              0 0

you can see the root partition is set to 1 1

this is after

Code:

/dev/sda3      /                     ext3       acl,user_xattr        0 0
/dev/sda4      /home                ext3       acl,user_xattr        0 0
/dev/sda1      /windows/C           ntfs-3g    user,rw               0 0
/dev/sda2      swap                 swap       defaults              0 0

you see, now they are all 0's

good luck,

rabbit2345

benhayman · 02-28-2008, 08:17 PM

Thanks for the help! Unfortunately it turns out I wasn't able to get to a terminal. I thought when I booted up in safe-mode, after it ran its check I would be able to do something.

The first time the screen went blank halfway through its scan, the second time it finished ad asked me to press ctrl+D to continue, and I wasn't able to do anything else. After I did that it went blank like it otherwise does and never did anything else.

rabbit2345 · 02-28-2008, 09:10 PM

ok,

you have a big problem now. If you can't even get to a terminal, the only thing you can do is maybe download a LiveCD and use that to fix your problem.

*WAIT!*

before you do the live cd thing, try booting with the option 3 at GRUB.

press escape, then look for show options at the bottom
then follow my previous post

since you are using ubuntu, i assume your laptop did not come with linux preloaded, right?

so put in the installer cd and you can see your local HD from there. Then follow the above procedure.

benhayman · 02-28-2008, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rabbit2345

ok,
before you do the live cd thing, try booting with the option 3 at GRUB.

Do you mean the option below booting in safe-mode, or something in the options when I use the ubuntu installer cd?

Quote:

so put in the installer cd and you can see your local HD from there. Then follow the above procedure.

Alright, but I don't know how to log in as root once I'm booted up in that, unless it has something to do with my last question.

benhayman · 02-28-2008, 09:53 PM

The third option at GRUB is a memory test, and pressing escape just reboots the computer.

rabbit2345 · 02-29-2008, 03:25 PM

ok,

start up with the live cd and open a terminal (should be called terminal, but it may not be)

it should be in the applications menus at the top

type :

Code:

su -

"su" means substitute user
the "-" means to erase all environment variables (don't worry about it)

if that doesn't work, try typing:

Code:

sudo -i

which is just as good as su -

once there, type:

Code:

gedit

to open a text editor

then, find your HD partition, (not the CD's) and find the /etc/fstab
try looking under /media first. I think your HD partition is hda1

you know you have the right one when the first item looks something like this

/dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults 1 1

then follow the previous post

benhayman · 02-29-2008, 06:08 PM

It's working now, thanks a lot!