Not booting after upgrade to Hardy Heron

[parislanuit]

Binary package hint: usplash

I upgraded from gusty to Hardy yesterday the installation went fine and asked me to reboot which i did but since it failed to reboot.

My desktop computer:
CM asrock k7NF2-vsta Raid (chipset nforce2)
Athlon 1800+
Memory: 1x512+1x256 ddr pc2100
No cd rom drive
No floppy drive
Hard disk 2.5"(from a laptop) Samsung M60/120GO linked to the mobo with an adaptator 2.5"/3.5". Dual boot Win/ubuntu-

B4 upgrade dualboot worked perfect
==========================

Now windows works fine but ubuntu fails to boot

reovery mode: sticks to 'can't read partition table' as shown in th enclosed video file or here:.

http://franckfdm.free.fr/cartoons/bughardyheron.avi

NB My 2.5" disk worked fine in ata 33 till now.

update : This bug happens when using 2ndary channel for the hard drive but not on the 1st channel.

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

According to the outputs that you get, that really sounds like a Hard drive which has bad blocks. Can you scan your hard drive for bad blocks using this command?

sudo badblocks -sv /dev/sda
or
sudo badblocks -sv /dev/hda

depending if your Hard drive appears as /dev/hda or /dev/sda

This will do a read-only scan of all your hard drive to find bad blocks which can be stopped anytime with CTRL+C . If you get several Exception emask error messages during the scan, most probably that you have bad blocks and that your hard drive panics/become unstable so linux kernel show outputs about it.

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

I forgot to mention that you can do this from the LiveCD, since your are not able to boot your computer.

[parislanuit (ubuntu-banderilles)]

Many Thanks Saivann for helping.

I just carried out the hard drive as u suggested but i fear we went wrong as the test didn t find any da;aged cluster:

Quote/
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo badblocks -sv /dev/sda
badblocks: No such file or directory while trying to determine device size
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo badblocks -sv /dev/hda
Checking blocks 0 to 117220824
Checking for bad blocks (read-only test): done 824
Pass completed, 0 bad blocks found.
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$
/Unquote

The disk is qwite new

I guess that the cable IS a source of problems with connetcing a 2.5inch disck in a normal PC. I noticed the disk was configured by windows as an ata 33 instead of an ata 100 disk. but for a quiet PC it was ok for me,.. as far as it can work fine.

What is surprising is that it zork perfect with my windows...

Any suggestion to try to have it zork again with Ubuntu....

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

Thanks for your confirmation. Then we have to assume that there is a problem with ubuntu. I personally have no idea about how it can be fixed. To help Linux kernel team, can you boot with the LiveCD and attach the files created by these commands to that bug report?

    * uname -a > uname-a.log
    * cat /proc/version_signature > version.log
    * dmesg > dmesg.log
    * sudo lspci -vvnn > lspci-vvnn.log

[parislanuit (ubuntu-banderilles)]

Thanks for ur reply anyway and for the assistance.
I of course enclose the attachements to help the team.

I d have loved to be more helpful but i lack knozledge on this.

Do not hesitate to co;e back if y need or onyone needs ;ore details or reports. wont refor;at bynow. will use zin as a temporary solution.

brgds
Mat

[parislanuit (ubuntu-banderilles)]

There is no version_signature file but a version file at that place.
But it only creates an empty file....

nb I am using a drepper drake liveCD..

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

Thanks for your fast answer and for the informations you provide. Can you actually provide dmesg, uname-a and version.log when booting from Hardy LiveCD? These logs need you to boot from the version of ubuntu which has the issue.

Also since Gutsy worked correctly with your computer, I think that the best solution for you (unfortunately) would be to come back to Gutsy and wait for Intrepid Ibex to see if this bug is fixed. We can expect a very high quality kernel for the next ubuntu release so maybe that this regression will be fixed, the more important is to give relevant informations about your actual problem so the kernel team can take a look at it.

Note that you can access and save all your files to a external media using the ubuntu LiveCD before re-installing.

[parislanuit (ubuntu-banderilles)]

No problem u & Ubuntu Teams can rely upon my support/assistance if required.

Can these logs be issued from a hardy Xubuntu alternate cd(xfce) or it has to be done from the ubuntu LiveCD only?

Brgds

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

Xubuntu, Kubuntu or Ubuntu can be used. Since the problem is with Hardy release, logs need to be created from Hardy (specially dmesg if you can) but if you can't even boot the {X,K}ubuntu LiveCD, What we have now will be enough, I think.

[parislanuit (ubuntu-banderilles)]

Thanks.
I finally burnt a genuine Ubuntu desktop liveCD and booted on it to issue these files as requested:

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

Thank you very much. I set status to Triaged, Importance to High and I assign the bug to the ubuntu-kernel-team. I can't do anything else to help this bug report but since it now contains necessary informations, developers will be able to take a look at it and to ask questions if needed. Thanks for your contribution.

[parislanuit (ubuntu-banderilles)]

Thanks to you i will keep the partition like this for a few days in case theyneed further tests/info.

[parislanuit (ubuntu-banderilles)]

Some additional info about my HDD

[parislanuit (ubuntu-banderilles)]

Looks liuke there is a problem to disk's driver and/or cable 2.5' to 3.5'....even under win...
if this may help!

[parislanuit (ubuntu-banderilles)]

I tried to boot on ubuntu and it finally booted!!
Changes made since:
- replaced 1x512 mo by 2X256mo in dual channel
- Tried 2ndary ide channel instead of 1st;(bios)
- enabled once the sata chip (bios) but turned it off again, and it still boots perfect.

But the disk i boot on is still the same and i have not changed anything on it(no reinstall etc)
Also the disk is still recognized as a uata 33 instead of uata 100

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

parislanuit: This is interesting! Can you try to find which one cause Hardy to fail? I suspect that it is the 1st IDE channel.

[parislanuit (ubuntu-banderilles)]

Hi Saivann
After a few tries, you assumptions were right. I can boot on pata 2ndary channel but not on the 1st channel. Strange cauz my plextor cdrw drive. Althought Win works on both channels, i guess my MB ide controllers seem to have a transfer data rate problem.
Mb is a low cost asrock model and maybe that's the issue.
Works better with a sata 80go Maxtor HD, although transfer data rate still very low compared to the 1.5GB bandwith capacity. I only get less than half thin figure under sisoft sandra test.

On the pata channels i only get the equivalent of a udma33 with a recent udma100 disk.

Still ubuntu seems more more toutchy on these issues than win or even than the 7.10 version.

I'll do some more testing with a normal 3.5" disk rather than my 2.5" on pata channels to see if the issue is on the ide 3.5to2.5" cable & let u know

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

Excellent, thanks for that information. This bug might be a misconfiguration problem which was tolerated by Gutsy but not Hardy. If your hard drive is the only one device on the primary PATA cable, it must be connected to the last connector (channel) of the PATA cable and the jumpers must be set to "master" or "cs". If the hard drive is connected to the middle connector of the PATA cable, it must be configured as "slave" and another device must be connected at to the last connector in "master".

[parislanuit (ubuntu-banderilles)]

hi,

Thanks for this information.
Nevertheless there is little chance this applies to me.
My disk is always connected alone as a master disk to a single master cable 3.5 to 2.5 inch(my disk is a laptop disk in a desktop computer). I enclose the pic of the cable.
It's whether a udma1 conroller material misperformance or an ubuntu bug.
Nevertheless
- On the udma1 channel: works perfect with win, not booting as per bug report.
- On the udma2 channel: works perfect with both OS

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

[parislanuit (ubuntu-banderilles)]

I finally have been able to test my previous configuration as asked(with a little delay).
More less the same config:
- Same hard drive (2.5" Samsung M60/120GO linked to the mobo with an adaptator 2.5"/3.5, but the disk is not the same but a brand new one)
- Same motherboard
- Processor is an Athlon barton 2500+ (1800+ B4)
- Ram is 2x1go ddr 400mhz (instead of 512+256 pc2100)

Installed Intrepid Ibex 8.10 alone (no double boot with XP). the disk is the same model (Samsung 2"5

Result: install worked perfect, system is stable no bug to report seems bug has been solved with kernel 2.6.27

Thanks & congratulations the ubuntu & linux kernel teams

[Andy Whitcroft (apw)]

Seems that this is now fixed with the Intrepid release. Closing this one off.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Per a decision made by the Ubuntu Kernel Team, bugs will longer be assigned to the ubuntu-kernel-team in Launchpad as part of the bug triage process. The ubuntu-kernel-team is being unassigned from this bug report. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies for more information. Thanks.