SOLVED Linux problems - anything I'm missing

[freakdiablo]

Ok, this is going to be a novel, so make sure you have some free time. I'm putting this here, since as of now, live CDs work fine so I doubt this is a direct hardware problem.

The other day I tossed together a basic PC to drag to a LAN a couple times a month (desktop is heavy, too lazy to unplug/replug everything, and I tend to break it whenever I move it). Before spending the $$$ on a copy of Windows I thought I'd see what games I have that would run through linux/WINE.

So Friday, got the parts, tossed it together and went about installing Ubuntu. It was going fine until I restarted and got an "hd0 out of disk" error and a "grub recovery" command prompt. The weird part being after rebooting a few times, the Ubuntu splash screen and was able to log in fine. Checked, just over 90gb free. Restarted, back to "out of disk" and the cycle continued. Tried reinstalling Ubuntu and got the same results.

So now I figure it may be something hardware based. Decided to switch over to Kubuntu since I don't like the new gnome look and just ran the memtest86 that came with it. After a couple hours, I checked on it, and looks like one of the sticks of RAM is defective. Thinking that was the problem, I shot an email to G.Skill, popped out the dead stick, and started installing Kubuntu.

A third to a half way through the install, got an error message. Don't remember exactly what it said, but it was along the lines of "the disk has entered read-only mode. Unable to complete the install." Thinking this meant the SSD was also defective, I plugged it into my desktop as a secondary drive. It mounted fine, I was able to format it, check disk came back clean, and the OCZ update tool said it was already running the newest firmware.

Tossed it back in, tried installing Kubuntu again, and the install went through alright. Reboot, solid, unblinking cursor, system appears to be frozen. Reinstall again, same thing. Downloaded Overclockix (bunch of fun stuff on this thing, thanks to whoever contributed to it) and booted off of it. Ran the built in Disk Utility's self check on the SSD, and like Windows it didn't find any problems. Also, I know it's not long enough but I've been running mPrime for about an hour now and it hasn't picked anything up yet.

Any ideas? I've heard there's something you have to do with Windows X to get it to play nice with SSDs, do I have to do the same with linux?

It's the PC in red in my sig -

AMD PII X4 965
8GB G.Skill Ares (originally 2x4gb, now just 1x4gb)
MSI 760GM-P34(FX)
120GB OCZ Vertex 3
MSI 5850 OC

 

[Automata]

Since your errors seem to primarily related to the disk (OS "frozen" likely waiting on disk IO, "out of disk", etc), I would put a mechanical hard drive in to see if it has the same issue. If not, I would start suspecting data cables or the motherboard (hard drive controller).

Since live disks work for you, this makes perfect sense to me: they don't rely on the hard drive to run.

If another disk doesn't work, I'd start to suspect severed instability issues.

 

[petteyg359]

First thought: Bad HDD cable.
Second thought: Bad connection between the SATA port and the motherboard. If you're using the same cable on both systems, the problem being the motherboard becomes more likely. Just for fun, you could try testing the supposedly bad RAM in another system, too, and if it passes clean, it's another pointer towards a dud motherboard.

 

[freakdiablo]

Well, looks like I made a mistake. PMed Thideras about deleting or moving the thread. petteyg359 - looks like you were right. At this point I think it's either the ram slot or the controller giving errors, since I put the RAM stick without errors in the other slot, and I just checked and memtest is throwing up errors again. I'll toss both sticks in my desktop before class and set memtest running. I'll have to do some more testing, probably involving a hammer and/or a tall building, over the next few days.

Update: Tested the ram in my desktop. Over 6 1/2 hours error free, as opposed to errors within the first 1/2 hour or so when the ram was in the problem computer. However, on the lanbox I tried a different SATA cable and a different port, and restarted the computer several times and it booted right into the Kubuntu logon screen every time. Starting Memtest again on that machine, might still be a problem with the controller itself.