Effort Terminated Unusual system crash. Thanks for attempted help!

[Shabakthanai]

Kubuntu Natty
KDE current
Mythbuntu

I was watching the playoffs on my pcHDTV HD-5500 tuner card. It crashed with what appeared like a cache full problem, so I rebooted the computer to start fresh.

The computer will not boot. It stops with a black screen with the following in the upper left corner of the screen: Ubuntu 11.04 Yeshuah tty1 and instruction to login. The login is 'Yeshuah login:' I type in my username and password which results in a command prompt.

I attempted 'sudo dpkg --configure -a'. I also attempted 'sudo startx'. Neither had a response.

Upon restart, I pressed F8 to enter the boot menu. A blue screen with white print only provided for either HDD or removable drive. Selecting the hard drive returns me to the same black screen requesting login. Additionally, I entered the bios and reset the defaults. This did not change anything either.

I attempted restart holding down the shift key, however it did not allow me entry into a boot menu that included a repair selection. Is that where I should be?

I suspect the problem is related to mythbuntu and the TV card. Nevertheless, I am unable to boot to a normal screen and need help. Thank you!

[GreyGeek]

Re: Unusual system crash.

A first glance suggests that your video card and/or TV card died.

Do things improve if you remove the TV card and try a boot?

BTW,
some more detail would be nice.
Login in to your account, even though it gives you only a console, and isse

sudo lspci
and
sudo lshw

and report back the info displayed.

[Shabakthanai]

Re: Unusual system crash.

Can the data from these two files be copied to a thumb drive? If so, how do I do that using a command-line? There is so much data, I don't think I could accurately copy it on paper without mistakes. I would have to change my glasses back and forth to do so, and getting back and forth so many times would invite mistakes. Additionally, it would probably take hours to do it hand-written.

I am communicating via a laptop my daugter gave me for Christmas; it has a Windows 7 premium OS. It is not so easy to use after using Kubuntu for so many years.

Also, will the data in these files indicate whether I have a hardware problem? The TV tuner card is new, the GPU is only 6 months old and has been working fine.

If I have to hand write the information, it will surely take a while.

[HalationEffect]

Re: Unusual system crash.

If you modify the commands slightly, like so:

sudo lspci > lspci-info.txt

sudo lshw > lshw-info.txt

You will then have two text files that contain the output of the commands, which you can copy to a thumb drive, etc.

[Shabakthanai]

Re: Unusual system crash.

I just finished the 'lspci' hand written portion and can type it in, but I like the copying of txt files better. however, after following your instruction to:

sudo lspci > lspci-info.txt

I do not know what to do to copy the file to the thumb drive. I have only done such things using a GUI and do not know what to type in the CLI to make the transfer.

I will start typing the lspci into a .txt while awaiting a response, just in case it will speed things up a bit. I am sorry I am so limited, friend. Thanks for your patience.

[HalationEffect]

Re: Unusual system crash.

Hmm, let's see... (racks brains)

I suspect that a USB thumb drive isn't going to do anything as helpful as auto-mount itself in a purely CLI environment - however if it does, skip over section 1 of the following instructions and just do section 2.

Section 1 - setting up the thumb drive

a) Insert the thumb drive into a USB port
b) Issue the following command to find out what its device path is:

sudo fdisk -l | grep Disk

c) Look at the resulting list of all your drives, and from the capacities, figure out which one is the USB drive ( for the purpose of an example, let's say it is /dev/sdb1 )
d) Create a mount point for it using the following command:

sudo mkdir /media/thumbdrive

e) Mount the drive. Assuming the thumb drive is formatted as FAT, use the following command:

sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /media/thumbdrive -o uid=1000,gid=1000,utf8,dmask=027,fmask=137

If the drive wasn't /dev/sdb1 then replace that part in the above command with the actual device path.

-----------------------------------

Section 2 - copying the files

a) Use the following code:

cp ls*.txt /media/thumbdrive

(If you didn't need to do section 1, then replace "/media/thumbdrive" with the actual path to your thumb drive.)
b) Unmount the thumb drive before you remove it, using the following command:

sudo umount /media/thumbdrive

[Shabakthanai]

Re: Unusual system crash.

Here is the 'lspci'; I hand copied and made a txt file:

"lspci"

00:00.0 Ram memory: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:01.0 ISA Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] LPC bridge (rev a2)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] SMBus (rev a1)
00:01.2 RAM Memory: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Memory Controller (rev a1)
00:01.3 Co-processor: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Co-processor (rev a2)
00:01.4 RAM Memory: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a1)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a 1)
00:04.0 USB Controller: nVidik Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] OHCI U.S. B1 0.1 Controller (rev a1)
00:04.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] EHCI USB 2.0 (rev a1)
00:06.0 IDE Interface: nVidea Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] IDE (rev a1)
00:07.0 Audio Device: nVidea Corporation MCP72XE/MCP72P/MCP78U/MCP78S High Definition Audio (rev a1)
00:08.0 PCI Bridge: nVidea Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Bridge (rev a1)
01:09.0 IDE Interface: nVidea Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] SATA Controller (AHCI mode) (rev a2)
00:10.0 PCI Bridge: nVidea Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:13.0 PCI Bridge: nVidea corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Bridge (rev a1)
00:14.0 PCI Bridge: nVidea corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Bridge (rev a1)
00: 18.0 Host Bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor Hyper Transport thank you for other felony me crazy and see perceive a
Configuration
00:18.1 Host Bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor Address Map
00:18.2 Host Bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor DRcontroller
00:18.3 Host Bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Famiiy 10h Processor Miscellaneous Control
00:18.4 Host Bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor Link Control
01:09/0 Multimedia Video Controller: Conexent systems, Inc. CX23880/1/2/3 PCI Video And Audio Decoder (rev 05)
01:09.1 Multimedia Controller: Conexent Systems, Inc. CX3880/1/2/3 PCI Video And Audio Decoder [Audio Port] (rev 05)
01:09.2 Multimedia Controller: Conexent Systems, Inc. CX3880/1/2/3 PCI Video And Audio Decoder [MPEG Port] (rev 05)
01:09. 4 Multimedia Controller: Conexent Systems, Inc. CX3880/1/2/3 PCI Video And Audio Decoder [IR Port] (rev 05)
01:0a.0 Firewire (IEEE 1394): Agere Systems FW322/323 (rev 70)
02:00.0 PCI Bridge: nVidea Corporation NF200 PCIe 2.0 Switch For Mainboards (rev a2)
03:0.0 PCIe Bridge: nVidea Corporation NF200 PCIe 2.0 Switch For Mainboards (rev 02)
03:02.0 PCIe Bridge: nVidea Corporation NF200 PCIe 2.0 Switch For Mainboards (rev a2)
04:00.0 VGA Compatible Controller: nVidea corporation GF 104 [GeForce GTX 460] (rev a1)
04:00.1 Audio Device: nVidea corporation GF 104 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
06:00.0 Ethernet Controller: RealTek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 82)
07:00.0 Ide Interface: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE6121 SATA II Controller (rev b2)

I hope it is accurate, but there are many options for me to screw up preparing it the way I did. I hope I did a good job.

I will attempt your recommendations for mounting and copying the other document and follow when I get it made.

Using a 16gb Sandisk Cruiser, I formatted the thumb drive prior to beginning the instruction. Here is what I did:

Format Removable Disk (F
Capacity 14.9GB
File System
FAT 32 (default)
Allocation unit size
default allocation size
Restore Device Defaults
x Quick format
Start
The options for file system were NTFS, FAT32, and exFAT; should I have formatted to exFAT? I am unfamiliar with exFAT.


When completed with format, I put it in the USB port.

The address of the removable drive is as follows:

Disk /dev/sdd: 16.0GB, 16008609792 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000ef115

Then I typed the following in the command prompt:

sudo mkdir /media/thumbdrive
sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdd /media/thumbdrive -o uid=1000,utf8,dmask=027,fmask=137

The response was:

mount: wrong fs type bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdd, missing codepage or helper program, or other error

In some cases useful information is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so
steven@Yeshuah:~$ _

I am confused.

[ardvark71]

Re: Unusual system crash.

00: 18.0 Host Bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor Hyper Transport thank you for other felony me crazy and see perceive a
Configuration

I am confused.

Me too.

Regards...

[HalationEffect]

Re: Unusual system crash.

The options for file system were NTFS, FAT32, and exFAT; should I have formatted to exFAT? I am unfamiliar with exFAT.


When completed with format, I put it in the USB port.

The address of the removable drive is as follows:

Disk /dev/sdd: 16.0GB, 16008609792 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000ef115

Then I typed the following in the command prompt:

sudo mkdir /media/thumbdrive
sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdd /media/thumbdrive -o uid=1000,utf8,dmask=027,fmask=137

The response was:

mount: wrong fs type bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdd, missing codepage or helper program, or other error

It's a good thing that you didn't choose exFAT, as that is a Microsoft proprietary file system that (afaik) is only supported in Linux via a utility called Fuse. Would have made things quite a bit more complicated.

For the command where you mount the drive, put a "1" at the end of the device path, like so: /dev/sdd1 (one must specify the partition on the device, even if there is only one partition). Heh, I had a nagging feeling that I'd left something out in my instructions - my apologies.

[Shabakthanai]

Re: Unusual system crash.

Thanks for your patience, although it is at times like this that I prefer keeping my mouth shut, because what I say now will reveal my limited computer knowledge.

The computer replied the following:

mount: special device /dev/sdd1 does not exist

Here is what I entered into the command line:

sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdd1 /media/thumbdrive -o uid=1000,utf8,dmask=027,fmask=137

Have I screwed things up irreprairably?

I forgot to mention that I took the tuner out and attempted to boot the system. The computer came back to the same CLI prompt as when the card was installed, so I believe the TV tuner card is probably not defective. As far as the video card is concerned, there is an ASUS start page that appears perfectly as a GUI prior to booting the system, so it looks like the video card is working too.

[HalationEffect]

Re: Unusual system crash.

The computer replied the following:

mount: special device /dev/sdd1 does not exist

Here is what I entered into the command line:

sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdd1 /media/thumbdrive -o uid=1000,utf8,dmask=027,fmask=137

Have I screwed things up irreprairably?

This has left me scratching my head a bit in puzzlement... can you check that the thumb drive can be accessed (written to & read from) on a different machine? If it works correctly on a different machine, but still gives the same error when trying that mount command again... I'll have to confess to being out of ideas at that point.

[Shabakthanai]

Re: Unusual system crash.

I copied a cartoon image from the google site to the thumb drive. It opened without problem on my windows 7 laptop. Then I deleted it successfully.

Additionally, I opened a live CD of Natty and played it without problems. Grahics were normal, so I am confident the Video Card is functioning properly.

Am I at that ugly point where I have to re-install Natty again?

Although I have never used any restore feature on my computer, I believe I have made a backup of a functioning system in the past. I don't have any experience using that feature though. Is that something I could do from the konsole?

[Shabakthanai]

Re: Unusual system crash.

I copied a cartoon image from the google site to the thumb drive. It opened without problem on my windows 7 laptop. Then I deleted it successfully.

Additionally, I opened a live CD of Natty and played it without problems. Grahics were normal, so I am confident the Video Card is functioning properly.

Am I at that ugly point where I have to re-install Natty again?

Although I have never used any restore feature on my computer, I believe I have made a backup of a functioning system in the past. I don't have any experience using that feature though. Is that something I could do from the konsole?

Unable to continue repair. I had to get my computer running and reinstalled the OS. Thanks to all who tried to help. Sorry I could not hang in there longer.