10.0 or 10.1 lost all hda's, locks up

[stan]

Hi, I run Win98Se on a Duron with 320M ram. Loaded Mandrake 10 from CD back in Jan 05 and all was well, except external modem hard to use. Uploaded a few updates from web (very slow) but can't remember what all. Didn't boot into MD for about 4 months. Who knows what all changes (in Win) to config since, mainly these: got USB port expander and replugged things; switched from dialup to DSL using LAN modem.

 

The problem:

Booted MD, it fails to find usb printer, and starts DiskDrake and wants to do something unclear to my hard drive partitions. I'm not about to let it reformat or repartition anything with no more explanation than it offers. Cancel, KDE starts OK but Konqueror can't see any drives. I try Config System utility, but it hangs at splash. I logoff to shut down, screen goes blackish but system does not power off, I have to pull the plug.

 

I am tempted to uninstall, but don't know how to safely do that. Would rather fix but cannot spend hours. Poked around on forum but didn't find anything I could understand.

 

If the Q has already been answered here, point me at it. Just remember that EVERY step needs to be spelled out: what does it do? If it needs information off my machine, where do I find it? If the command line needs {yourfilename} do I include the curly braces?

 

My original purpose for returning to MD was to connect with the DSL. Poked around and found no help doing that either. I thought it would find it by itself and work without any input from me (beyond opening a browser of course) but of course not. But first things first. What happened to the drives?

[Ixthusdan]

Which boot loader are you using?

In your windows work, did you change the location of any ide devices?

Is Mandriva trying to locate the new usb device as a drive?

How many ide devices do you have and what is ther location on the bus?

 

Diskdrake should not be asking about your hard drive partitions. Please boot it again and write down exactly what is printed on the screen.

[stan]

1.Which boot loader are you using?

2.In your windows work, did you change the location of any ide devices?

3.Is Mandriva trying to locate the new usb device as a drive?

4.How many ide devices do you have and what is ther location on the bus?

 

Diskdrake should not be asking about your hard drive partitions. Please boot it again and write down exactly what is printed on the screen.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

1. Lilo, plain screen

2. Haven't had the box open

3. Had a key drive on a usb port when I first booted into MD. Thought it might be the cause so I took it off and rebooted, same results, except an "sda" listing in the 'Drake screen was not there.

4. I have a 100M zip drive, a CD drive, and the 60G HD divided in half, 30G each Win and MD. MD has /, home, swap.

On usb I now have the HP printer, a mouse, and unconnected camera and key drive cords.

Will reboot later and get back on the last request.

[ianw1974]

Devices can sometimes fail detection if Plug and Play OS is enabled in the BIOS. This should not be set to be controlled by the OS, but disabled instead. This may help with detection of new devices.

[stan]

Progress is occurring, but on its own, I'm not doing much. I rebooted to see the screens (after unplugging my usb memory-card reader, which I don't use anyway) and it noted a pile of sda's removed. Config? I said Y, it said Choose a partition: hda1, 5, 6, 7: FAT32 (win), ext3 (/), swap, ext3 (/home). I chose Cancel, since it didn't say what it was thinking to do. It may have been HardDrake, not DiskDrake. I don't know the difference.

Boot continued normally, Printer boot didn't say FAIL this time. Opened System Config in KDE normally!! Enabled "dhcp" to see my dsl modem, though some "host name" questions I did not understand so I left them blank (Help no help at all, no terms defined or explained: Noobs need better help. Anyone willing to write a deeper, simpler Help that noobs can select?)

Konqueror sees /home and /mnt/windows but nothing in / or on the zip drive or floppy. Didn't see an easy way to "enable" access (in case it was caused by not being root).

 

Rebooted, this time harddrake didn't run. Everything looked good but no connection to internet. Sys Config froze at splash. LogOff refused, had to power off by hand.

 

On this boot was fast enough to visit BIOS and changed OS to "not PnP".

 

Opened Sys Config this time, enabled dhcp "connect at boot". "Services" icon doesn't work (had visited that on first boot above): "Loading, please wait" forever. Sorry, don't have that much time. Close Sys Config, Konqueror won't start. LogOff Session.

 

Restart Session. Tried Home icon on desktop. Eventually opened in Konqueror but Very Slowly. Everything else very slow. Closed Home. Restarted Konqueror. Tried to connect to internet. Works!!! But speed is more like dialup, not dsl. (dial modem is off; dsl modem lights indicate that is path used)

 

Anyway, here I am in Konqueror.

Problems remaining: Nothing shows in / or zip drive, floppy. Long delays. Sys Config balky.

Will fully reboot again and see what's new. Just confirmed printer, so that's OK now.

 

Edit: Rebooted, tried Konq to zip drive (which is "devices:/devidehost0bus1target1lun0part4mntzip"). Konq shows no files, freezes. Had to close by taskbar ("Not responding, you lose all") Reopened Konq (define: stupid), typed in mandrivausers.org, froze again. Closed. Opened Epiphany, got here and logged in. Then decided to open Control Center (=sys config). Froze at splash, couldn't get it off screen so had to log off forum, end session. Never offered a new session, had to hard-power off. On reboot printer failed to register. Opened Control Center OK this time (first thing) and enabled printer without incident. Closed CC, opened Nautilus, clicked on removable (disk), said Loading but froze instead. Had to close it. Refuses to restart. Opened Epiphany, came here thoroughly disgusted and out of time.

I assume I can use GEdit to redo some obscure text file somewhere and get access to my drives, although that sure doesn't seem to me to be a 21st century way to do it.

Edited October 27, 2005 by stan

[Ixthusdan]

All the issues you describe could be multiple problems, the least of which is waiting for the configuration to occur. Also, the updates you did may have been bad, especially if you were using dial-up. I suggest you install with Mandriva cd1, and perform an "upgrade" install. This will efffectively conduct any repairs that might be needed. Be sure PNPOS remains off. I would also not have any usb devices plugged in except for the printer. I am assuming that there is no pertinent data on the linux partitions.

 

Actually, on second thought, I would just do a reinstallation, including reformatting the partitions. The only reason harddrake would ask about partitions is if windows attempted to "repair" a linux partition, in English, wiping it out. I am hoping that the install disks were good, good burn, good download, etc.

[AussieJohn]

Hello Stan.

An important thing to commit to memory.

 

If your screen freezes it is most likely the window you have open.

 

Don't hit your computer reset. In Windows when you get a freeze the entire Windows system is frozen so you need to hit reset.

 

In Linux just use Ctrl+Alt+Esc. You will see the mouse pointer turn into a Skull 'n crossbones. If the mouse pointer is also frozen then hit enter. If it is not then move the mouse pointer over the frozen window and either left click or hit enter. Done.

 

Cheers. John.

[stan]

Thanks, I put that on another sticky note on my screen......

 

I was thinking of re-installing. As you surmize, the little personal info I have in there is old and not very important. I bought the discs from a shop (a download-and-burn was definitely not possible at dialup, it's a skill set I haven't acquired yet; even at dsl it would take a long time) so they should be good. If I come into any $ I may get the 06 set to install instead.

 

Due to schedule this may not happen immediately. Thanks for your attention, will post again after: [pick one] Crash and Burn / Victory and Freedom.