Help! Zorin 8.1 restarts my PC automatically & I can't shut it down.
 

I completed a solo install of Zorin 8.1 (32 bit) on my PC. Prior it had a dual boot, dual software setup of XP and Ubuntu. Now, Zorin automatically reboots itself when I try to turn off the software. I have to pull the electrical plug to get it to stop.

Any suggestions? Thank you so much...

Do you mean turn off the software or shut down your computer?

Did you delete the XP and Ubuntu partitions before installing Zorin?

Is this a desktop or laptop? What make & model? So I can look it up:-

Thanks for your reply.

This is an IBM tower computer, model # MT-M 8113-E7U. Zorin shuts down properly and the computer momentarily shuts down but immediately reboots and reopens Zorin up again. I did not delete the existing partitions for this install - I used a live boot disk of Zorin 8.1 and installed it as a solo software install.

Thanks for your help!!!

Steven

Prior to installing Zorin did you have this same issue?

Sometimes triple booting can cause issues but I am not entirely sure if that 's what is causing the reboot.

This may not be so easily diagnosed:-

Zorin is based on Debian and Ubuntu. I'm trying to find out what 'version of Ubuntu' so I can read the release notes to see what the known issues are. (If any)

There is a software called boot infoscript. It 's a bash script that searches all hard drives on a c omputer for information related to booting. (Might help but not sure yet)

From terminal try

That command has always worked for me-:)

Thanks for everyone's efforts.

The command shutdown -h now did not work for me. It did shut the PC but it autobooted immediately, just as before.

How would I search for: boot infoscript in the Terminal? If found, what should I do with it? Remember, I'm a real NEWBIE.

Prior to the Zorin install, the dual boot of Ubuntu & XP worked great on this PC.

Steven

While Zorin is up and your ready to shut it down try this in the terminal.
It should shut down completely. (should)

Here is the link for boot infoscript-
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

I'll look for the thread that one of our members explained about boot intoscript so you can follow along with it. Basically you download the tar.gz (archive pkg) and I think you run it.

Here's a few links to help you learn more on bootinfoscript.
Sorry I am not good with the output of what bootinfoscript provides. I think Mr. Yancek is.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...rt-4175507450/

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ix-4175506150/

So now, you have XP, Ubuntu and Zorin installed?

(might have to run "fdisk -l" as root to see all partitions)

FDisk Command Results & Alternative Idea Question
 

Here's the results of fdisk -l on my computer:

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80032038912 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9730 cylinders, total 156312576 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: 0x000f2fa5

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 150030335 75014144 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 150032382 156311551 3139585 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 150032384 156311551 3139584 82 Linux swap / Solaris

I think only ONE software is installed here.

Question - What would happen if I do a complete format of C drive and then reinstall Zorin? Would that work? Would Zorin install from the DVD drive if NO software is on the PC? If so, how/where would I enter the format C drive command?

You may not have selected to do that but the output of the fdisk command you posted indicates you did. You have one Linux partition which would be Zorin and an Extended partition which contains your swap partition.

The 'bootinfoscript' is a bash script which you can download and run and it will output a results.txt file which gives information about your drives/partitions and boot files. On their page, there is a Description box and a link in it with instruction on how to use it. I doubt that will help but it's useful to have. Just google 'bootinfoscript' and you will get the site. Post the output and someone should be able to tell you if there is any problem there.

There is no C drive. That's a windows naming convention which came from their predecessor CP/M and I believe IBM before that. Your Zorin is on sda1, the sda refers to the first drive, the one to the first partition. You could try reinstalling it and there should be no problem with that, just install over the current system. Did you happen to do an md5checksum on the Zorin iso? There should be instructions on the download page and there may have been a problem with the iso download. Might also just be hardware. I'm surprised the shutdown command was a problem.

I doubt it's Zorin, it sounds more like a hardware issue - like a sticky power button, you might want to check that.

You can get this error when shutdown issues the wrong run level command to the inittab routine. shutdown -h should call runlevel 0. Your system is always calling for runlevel 6 which is reboot. Since this always happens no matter how you ask for a shutdown then the error may be in your initab. Take a look at /etc/inittab. You should have a table in inittab that corresponds to this table in my Debian stable system:

# Runlevel 0 is halt.
# Runlevel 1 is single-user.
# Runlevels 2-5 are multi-user.
# Runlevel 6 is reboot.

l0:0:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 0
l1:1:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 1
l2:2:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 2
l3:3:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 3
l4:4:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 4
l5:5:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 5
l6:6:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 6


Every Linux system has a similar table. Check your inittab table to see if when you ask to run runlevel 0 inittab is instead calling runlevel 6. Here is the same table corrupted to where it will reboot every time you call for a shutdown.



# Runlevel 0 is halt.
# Runlevel 1 is single-user.
# Runlevels 2-5 are multi-user.
# Runlevel 6 is reboot.

l0:0:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 6
l1:1:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 1
l2:2:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 2
l3:3:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 3
l4:4:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 4
l5:5:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 5
l6:6:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 6



Another test that you might run is to ask for a reboot and see if the computer reboots or shuts down.

--------------------------
Steve Stites

Mr Yancek, the live boot disk apparently does more than advertised. When I solo installed Zorin, it must have erased the prior OS along with all partitions there.

As a complete NEWBIE, I'm having trouble following/doing the whole bootinfoscrip process.

Mr Orasis, the power button idea was certainly a possibility so I opened the PC case a was able to test it (along with my neighbor's help and it's operating 100% correctly.

Steven

Mr jailbait, your recommendation looks very promising but everytime I use this inside my Terminal window, the results are aways: command not found. I've tried "sudo" in front of this but I get the same results.

How should I be loading this inside of Terminal window? Thank you!

Steven