Gqview was open. I copied several photos to another file then opened a file manager to be sure the photos were there. They were not. At this point the system froze. I don't think this has anything to do with what follows.

At this time the mouse pointer would move but that was all. I waited for a long time hoping it would clear itself. It didn't. 'Ctrl+Alt+Del' would not work. Finally, I had no choice but to turn the box off.

Now when it boots it freezes after LILO. There is a splash screen and that is it.

What do I do?
Where do I start looking?
I can put the boot CD in and go to Rescue but what do I do then?
Will a reinstall help?

Any help appreciated.
dlw

Get in to rescue mode and run fsck on all your partitions.
In need restore your most recent backup.

If all else fails a re-install won't do much damage - especially if your /home and data directories are on separate partitions.

What he didn't say is format hda1 but do not format your user partition (hda6 I think) , and all your settings should still be there

/dev/hda is defective.
/dev/hdc and /dev/hdd are okay.
Removed and replaced /dev/hda.
In process of reinstalling.
All data was backed up.

Thanks for replying.
dlw

Have a closer look at your hard drive, it might have problems and fail soon. Not that it must be the case, but it's a good idea to check.

Problems continue.

Installed Mandriva 2007. All went well during installation.
During boot up it gets so far then this error message;
Checking root file system
fsck.ext3: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/hdc1.

I used vim to open /etc/fstab and it still shows the old installation.
I tried to edit it but can not even though I'm on as root.

What there actually is after removing the defective hard drive is;
/dev/hda /
/dev/hdb1 (null)
/dev/hdb5 swap
/dev/hdb6 /pics
/dev/hdd /mnt/cdrom

Any idea on how to solve this?
dlw

How many drives do you have in there? Are you sure "hdc" was defective? You can use
to test drives. You could use Knoppix for this, if you have it lying around. To check the results and if my memory is correct command is:
This command also will tell you how far the self test has gone (it's hidden somewhere at the begining). Self test can take up more than an hour.

Also, could you modify the /etc/fstab file? Maybe it's just that. If you couldn't try with Knoppix (as root from command line)

I tried editing /etc/fstab with vim but kept getting a read only message.
I am downloading knoppix now and will try your suggestion when it finishes.

Using Knoppix Live CD.
I think I found the problem.
There are hda, hdb and hdc.
a is what I just installed linux on.
b is where all my data is except there is a b1 from an old install.
b1 is where the sys is trying to boot from. b1 has an hdc which was a hd but no longer exist.

How do I change this so the sys is booting up from a instead of b?
Is that lilo?

dlw

Actually I forgot to ask you to check what Knoppix tells these partitions (the shortcuts on the desktop should show the info needed). Probably that hda should read hda1, please make sure, hda without number seems somewhat strange to me. You can edit fstab with Knoppix the following way: boot Knoppix, then:
Assuming your root partition is /dev/hda1. Do not mount using GUI, if you already have unmount partition first. Then:
Which should bring up fstab in an text editor. Now you should be able to correct the fstab file (supposing you really only have to replace hda by hda1).

Did you check your hard drives with smartctl?