Mandriva Version: Updated Mandriva 2009 Spring I don't know whether this is a bug, my harddrive, or what the problem is as I'm a novice in Linux. The machine has booted normally for around a year without any problems at all. Then suddenly whilst on the Internet it crashed (froze). My only solution was to reboot. This happened several times in quick succession.
On one occasion, I got a system failure message on bootup and found my harddrive was not present in the BIOS. But after another reboot (and turning off the machine) it was back, though would still not reboot into Mandriva. I tried the installation disk but without success. Eventually I decided I had no choice but to reinstall the system. This was followed by a reformat and different partition sizes. However, the same problem reoccured --it would fail at boot. Here's info from the second installation: On boot -- Won't boot into Mandriva. Get: 'FAILED' (in red). (Note: sda6 is my main (home) partition). Says-- 'Checking file systems /dev/sda6: Note: if several inode or block bitmap blocks or part of the inode table require relocation, you wish to try running e2fsck with the '-b 32768' option first. The problem may lie only with the primary block group descriptors, and the backup block group descriptors may be ok.' '/dev/sda6: Inode bitmap for group 15 is not in group (block 1548289)' '/dev/sda6: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY: RUN fsck MANUALLY'. Requests root password to fix (or press ctrl+d to reboot). Gave password (though cursor doesn't move). '[Repair file system] #?' Typing 'y' isn't recognised as a command. 'Help' or 'comm --help' doesn't help much either. Instead I type 'fsck'. I'm warned about the dire consequences typing 'y' to this action so I type 'n'. It then runs an auto check of inodes, blocks, and sizes. Sample: 'Free inodes count wrong for group... (#, counted=#). Fix <y>? I type 'y'. Several 'y' fixes later... '/dev/sda6: FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED' '...Files (3.7% non contiguous)'. Then-- 'Fix file system#?' Typing 'y' isn't recognised as a command. So I reboot ('ctrl+d') Boots normally into Mandriva without any (immediately recognisable) problems. But the problem persists. Usually the system begins by freezing (this happened in 'gedit' the last time --my broadband connection was switched off) and I had to reboot to get anything to happen. Eventually, after several instances of freezing, it fails at boot. This has happened several times now, whilst running different programs. END~~