Hi there,
from what you describe, the only thing I can tell you is that your computer seems to have a problem. Not enough information to tell more. No offense, though - how could you know what information is important or necessary if you're not an expert.
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Originally Posted by ciscowen
For a couple of weeks my Mint 13 has been turning itself off after booting up. I had to switch off power at the wall before I could re-boot.
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That could be a software problem (your Mint installation may be damaged), but just as well a hardware problem (RAM failure, overheating, an add-in card going rampant). Is this shutoff going along with anything strange? Like messages appearing on the screen in the last split second (even though it may be too quick to read them)? If it isn't, a software/installation problem is unlikely, though not impossible; if it is, this is a clear indication that the system reacts to some kind of event, maybe a hardware malfunction.
Have you tried to run the same or a different system as a Live CD? (No, you haven't, see below).
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Originally Posted by ciscowen
Now it boots sometimes and sometimes not.
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Sounds bad. :-(
Quote:
Originally Posted by ciscowen
I may get a screen with options about recovery mode and memory test etc. but they don't seem to do anything.
Then sometimes the first option does work.
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That seems to be the boot manager (GRUB) presenting you different operation modes, the first of them usually being "normal" system boot. The others usually are: Booting in recovery mode, running a memory test, and booting a different OS (e.g. if you have Linux and Windows installed alongside each other).
If you have only one OS installed, GRUB usually doesn't display this menu; but if there was a problem with the previous boot, it does.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ciscowen
I tried different distro installation disks (Mint 15, Ubuntu10.04) but I can't boot them from the desktop. When I click the icon it just shows the different folders on the disk.
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That's not how they're supposed to work! The point is to pop such a Live CD or DVD in and
boot the computer from it. Then you can use the Live system, which runs completely off the CD without caring about what's on your hard disk. You can, however, access your hard disk from the Live system's file manager, and copy files to or from it. And that's what I would urgently recommend you: Boot a Live system, connect an external hard disk or a large-capacity USB pen drive, and back up at least the data you consider precious from your home directory.
But before you try to access the built-in HDD from the Live system, wait some time and just play around with the system. If your computer really has a hardware problem, it is very likely that the Live system won't run stable, either.
So if your computer keeps crashing or shutting off randomly even when booted from the Live CD, your best bet is to have a technician examine it very thoroughly. Or, depending on your ambition and the age of the computer, consider buying a new one. Then you can still take out the old unit's HDD and connect it to the new computer as an external drive for backup purposes.
But if the Live system runs flawlessly, your PC is probably okay (in terms of hardware), and you should
really try to back up your data as I described above, and then do a clean new install. As much as I like Mint 13 (I'm also using it on two PCs for about a year), I don't think it makes that much sense to do intricate forensics and try and "reanimate" it, as support for Mint 13 will expire next spring anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ciscowen
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We don't know, it could be anything from sda1 to sda5, depending on your installation (the most likely one is sda1, though). And honestly, I don't think I'd recommend this article. Using fsck on a partition as it suggests may fix minor file system issues, but if your problem is file-system related, it's rather a big one that fsck will probably choke on.
[X] Doc CPU