Ubuntu

Ubuntu dead on new laptop

Asked by pns@imperica.com

Hello,

Sony Vaio W11 netbook with complete installation of UNR (ie scrubbing WinXP) after delivery.

Last week, the laptop gave a "battery low" limit and then before I could shut it down, it immediately switched off. After reboot, it boots as far as the Ubuntu logo (ie prior to login) and then simply hangs with a blank screen. The only remedy is to power the unit down.

On boot, Grub now offers

Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-20-generic

Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-20-generic (recovery mode)

and same for 2.6.31-19, 17, 14

and memory test (memtest86+) and memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)

All standard boots take me as far as the Ubuntu logo then hang.
Memtest came out fine.

Recovery takes me to the sh command line, but before that, some choice entries:

Mounting /sys on /root/sys failed: No such file or directory
Mounting /dev on /root/dev failed: No such file or directory
Mounting /proc on /root/proc failed: No such file or directory
Target filesystem doesn't have /sbin/init

So that's where I am. Trying cd /var/log reports "can't cd to log" so I can't figure out what's happened.

I'm a little bit stuck here. I am assuming that there has been some critical Ubuntu failure, or a major error on the unit (perhaps the disk) or both.

Thanks - any support or assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Paul

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Revision history for this message
Andrew Gaydon (andrew-gaydon) said : 		#1

Have you tried booting with the other Kernel versions ? 2.6.31-19

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pns@imperica.com (pns) said : 		#2

Hi Andrew,

Yes, I tried that. All of the other kernel versions had the same outcome.

Paul

Revision history for this message
Andrew Gaydon (andrew-gaydon) said : 		#3

Have you tried booting off a USB ? This may be difficult retrospectively.

Revision history for this message
pns@imperica.com (pns) said : 		#4

Hi Andrew,

USB boot works fine. To quickly get the system back to life, I have now re-installed UNR from scratch onto the unit.

Paul

Revision history for this message
Andrew Gaydon (andrew-gaydon) said : 		#5

Hi Paul,

Is everything OK, sounds like something screwed up on the machine.
Can we close this question ?

Andrew.

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Andrew Gaydon (andrew-gaydon) said : 		#6

It still sounds like a bug, because it shouldn't just corrupt itself if the machine powers off.

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pns@imperica.com (pns) said : 		#7

Andrew,

So far! (although I'm still installing!)

My suspicion matches yours, in that it is a hardware failure, rather than Ubuntu - but thought that you guys should be aware anyway. Given that I have another Vaio (but a different model) running Karmic, which has been absolutely fine, it seems to be the unit.

Please do close the question. Thanks for your help.

Paul

Revision history for this message
Andrew Gaydon (andrew-gaydon) said : 		#8

If it happens again, I would log a BUG.

Glad I could help.

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