-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 El 2008-03-31 a las 18:12 -0400, j.e.perry@cox.net escribió: You will get more help if you post to the list instead of answering in private.

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The Saturday 2008-03-29 at 22:17 -0400, j.e.perry@cox.net wrote:

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I have a desktop with an Asus K8V-X SE motherboard. It recently stopped booting, saying the hard drive failed smart tests.

But when I try to go into the rescue system to save my data, the installer goes through the warning to save my data and replace the drive,

The installer tells you what?? I don't understand how it can tell you that.

Am I being too sloppy with my terms?

Kind of :-) First, you must not assume that everybody here has English as the first language. Second, you know your problem and what you saw, but we do not. If something is missing in your explanations, your mind can fill the gaps, but ours can't, because we don't know what you saw or thought: we are not there. We can guess but not know. So yes, at least I needed a better explanation. Others might not, and others might simply skip your message. Your current email is much better, thanks. :-)

The system was running fine for several years under 9.3, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3 x86-64.

A couple of months ago, it stopped running. When I tried to reboot the running system, I got the smart message, with a warning to save everything on my hard disk and replace it immediately. Then it hung.

Thinking the hard drive was so bad it couldn't even boot the system, I pulled out my bootable 10.3 install dvd and tried to boot from it.

It started loading the installer kernel (I assume), gave the smart warning, and tried to continue. Part of booting is a message that says if it has a problem with some module, try booting again with "brokenmodules=...".

It loaded a bunch of modules, then printed "loading via82cxxx" on the screen and hung for several minutes. I repeated this a couple of times.

Do you remember if you had to do all that when you installed the system?

I restarted the machine, gave it the brokenmodules command, and where it had hung, it loaded two more modules that it hadn't before, and finally hung on "loading pata". I repeated this a couple of times.

Then I went to work, started up webmail, and started this series of messages.

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then hangs when it tries to load via82cxxx, even when I give the kernel parameter "brokenmodules=via82cxxx", as the installer advises during boot.

Are you trying to install or boot a rescue system?

Answered above, right?

Now, yes. Somehow I think that the warning about smart during boot doesn't come from Linux or the rescue/install DVD: it comes directly from your bios. I'm not absolutely sure, but it is my educated guess. If you can copy the exact error message it gives then I could search the boot scripts to find it, but I don't think it is there. As somebody else said, you could check the bios setup, and disable smart checking: then the boot process would not be halted.

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The procedure would depend on the exact type of problem smart have detected; but typically it would be to boot any rescue CD in text mode, and use dd_rescue to copy all that HD into images on another HD. Once the images were copied and safe, it would be the time to run tests on the possibly broken HD, not before.

As I said, I never got a successful boot. Everything I'm giving you is from the startup screen.

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So, is it safe to say my motherboard is broken, and the hard drive probably ok? Or are the problems independent, implying that both broke at about the same time?

Probably independent, unless the IDE chipset is involved. Perhaps the DVD is bad.

Is this still your opinion?

Could be. Everything is very strange. You could try removing the HD and see if the rescue disk boots. Perhaps better if you try another DVD, as the 10.3 one you have is suspect.

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There was a problem with the 10.3 DVD rescue system, some bad bug. I don't know which bug exactly.

OK. I guess this could be the source of my inability to boot a rescue system.

Yes, could be, but as I say, I don't know what the exact problem was. Most likely it was the automated rescue program which was broken.

But it seems very unlikely to me that two hardware devices on different ATA buses would die simultaneously.

Two buses, yes, but it could be the same chip, or something in common to both on the motherboard.

And there is clearly no way bad dvd software on the shelf could break a hard drive in the system. That's why I'm thinking in terms of a higher level fault on the motherboard.

It is possible. As to the HD, the maker probably has a program to test the device, which you can download from their web page. Seagate has a good one: time ago it was a downloadable floppy, now I think it is a small CD. If you can download it, try: it is a bootable mini dos or linux system dedicated to test the HD. Each maker should have their own program to test their disks. - -- Saludos Carlos E.R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFH8XPdtTMYHG2NR9URAm5GAJ93W1wInXO2rDZtAODoKVCgI245XQCfb0/l JVZMDgTLVQAYGa0ZYzejygg= =Vu8G -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----