random boot failure

[froebi]

Hi there,

with my fresh Feisty installation I experience a strange boot behaviour: Every now and then I boot my system it just stops booting about 1/4 through with the booting (according to the progress bar).

Sometimes the two LEDs right next to the num-lock-LED are blinking.

The only thing that helps then is a reset or power-off and on again.

I already tried to nail down the problem by looking at /var/log/messages next time the boot succeeded. But the failing boot doesn't seem to have left any message there. -- It's like the failing boot never happend. So I'm absolutely clueless.

Any ideas on what could cause this problem? Or do have an idea/strategy how to nail down the problem?

I'd like to get rid of the progress bar so I can see the boot messages. -- How do I do that?

regards,
Christian

[davidb]

Re: random boot failure

You can check out what's going on with your computer at boot time by pressing Ctrl-Alt-F1 (all three down at the same time). What this does is switch you to tty0, which is where Ubuntu (and other Debian-based distros) display messages to during boot up.

If it makes it all the way through, I think it will switch you back to tty7 (which is where the GUI stuff is). If not, you can go there yourself Ctrl-Alt-F7.

Unfortunately, I do not really know why the boot fails. Maybe looking at those messages and posting the output could help.

[penguin.ch]

Re: random boot failure

I already tried to nail down the problem by looking at /var/log/messages

It's rather /var/log/dmesg[.X] ... in addition, modifying the boot logging as described in this text might help you on.