Oh dear! What has happened now? SOLVED.

[NexusHumanis]

I just restarted my laptop, but it would not start up. Grub loads as usual, but after that things just stop. I dont get to the login screen, only black screen with the marker in the top left corner.
Trying to boot with a live cd yields the same results. What could be wrong?

Could my hard disk have croaked? It could seem that way. Though...the problems with running live-cd's might weaken that theory somewhat, I hope.

[arochester]

Re: Oh dear! What has happened now?

If you are using Hardy don't log in to your normal kernel. Boot into Recovery. That has an option to "Try to recover X Server." Try that.

[NexusHumanis]

Re: Oh dear! What has happened now?

Tried that. I get a message reading "EXT3-fs sda1: orphan cleanup on readonly fs". Is the filesystem corrupt in some way? Can it be fixed?

[dibl]

Re: Oh dear! What has happened now?

The first phenomenon (blinking cursor on black screen at bootup) is almost surely a video issue. Maybe a kernel upgrade borked your video driver or something like that?

I think the error message you got regarding the filesystem is unrelated to the first problem, but it does indicate what looks like a minor issue with the ext3 filesystem. If it were me, I'd run fsck first (text mode/root mode) and make sure that is cleared up before launching into the video driver re-installation.

[arochester]

Re: Oh dear! What has happened now?

Have a look at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=656769 particularly post #3

[NexusHumanis]

Re: Oh dear! What has happened now?

But how do i run commands with no system visible command line?

To Arochester; I found that post myself after entering the last post here. I have downloaded Puppy Linux, and will try to have it burned to cd tonight. The pc I am using now doesn't have a burner.

[dibl]

Re: Oh dear! What has happened now?

Have a look at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=656769 particularly post #3

Interesting! I guess if the filesystem has a serious problem, then it won't load the video driver either, so that could explain both issues.

But, it should boot a Live CD -- that has no connection to the hard drive filesystem. If it won't boot a Live CD, then there's something wrong in the hardware itself. :P

[arochester]

Re: Oh dear! What has happened now?

Can you by-pass the graphical login by pressing Alt+Ctrl+F1 and getting a text login?

Can you boot into the Recovery mode and choose Root?

You shouldn't need Puppy. The guy in the post was using Puppy but post #3 should work in Kubuntu

[NexusHumanis]

Re: Oh dear! What has happened now?

Can you by-pass the graphical login by pressing Alt+Ctrl+F1 and getting a text login?

>> No. I get text screencontent, but no command line. I can write, but commands don't do anything.

Can you boot into the Recovery mode and choose Root?

>>No, booting into recovery is what gives me the message i posted.

You shouldn't need Puppy. The guy in the post was using Puppy but post #3 should work in Kubuntu

>> I didn't really think so, but I figured it might be easier to get it to boot...then again, perhaps not. But the user in the ubuntuforums thread did say he was only able to boot only from ram. I don't think kubuntu can do that.

I tried booting with the Gparted live-cd, and it took me one step further, but nothing more. Maybe I should try that with Gparted.

[dibl]

Re: Oh dear! What has happened now?

I tried booting with the Gparted live-cd, and it took me one step further, but nothing more. Maybe I should try that with Gparted.

If the GParted Live CD was working the last time you booted it, and now it isn't, something is borked in your hardware. In other words, even with a broken hard drive (which I doubt), if your system is set to boot first from the CD ROM drive, then a Live CD should boot and display correctly and function as intended.

Assuming a desktop PC, I'd open the case and start by making sure the ribbon cable on the CD ROM drive is seated on both ends, then check the video card seating and cable. If you can get a Kubuntu Live CD to boot and run, it's definitely time to run memtest86 and make sure there's not a memory error.

[NexusHumanis]

Re: Oh dear! What has happened now?

Thanks for advice, but I have a laptop, so I will not be able to use them.
I tried booting Gparted, loading it into the ram, but it still did not work. However, I only have 512mb ram, so Gparted may not fit. (I do not remember how big it is.)
Looking at the startup sequence, I can see that the harddisk is present, and all partitions accounted for.
As for graphics, I don't know if this makes any difference, but the kubuntu logo and loading bar runs like usual for a while before the screen goes black. Both in normal boot and with a live-cd.

[arochester]

Re: Oh dear! What has happened now?

It looks like it might be a repair shop job...

Have you got any old kernels to try booting into?

[Snowhog]

Re: Oh dear! What has happened now?

If you can boot a LiveCD (get the initial menu), run the Mem Test. Let it run overnight if you can. This will eliminate/confirm whether or not you have a problem with your RAM chip(s).

[NexusHumanis]

Re: Oh dear! What has happened now?

I have tried booting into old kernels, same results. Something else that is strange, is that when i try booting live-cd's, they just stop when the screen goes black.
Normal boot stops after "kinit no resume image. Doing normal boot."
The "orphan cleanup" message appears at recovery boot.

I am now trying to load puppy linux, hoping running from ram might work.

[NexusHumanis]

Re: Oh dear! What has happened now?

I was able to start memtest with the Gparted live-cd. It has now run for a while, and has declared "Pass complete, no errors, press esc to exit." I have not exited so far, as I will follow the advice to let it run overnight.