Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fsck forced on boot up due to date problems after update
Hi Rob, I've been trying to install Ubuntu 7.04 on my dad's Thinkpad R50e notebook this evening with not much luck. Snip... I then rebooted again, and during the reboot the machine complained about not having a disk check for about 49,710 days. It ran through the disk check and rebooted, it then on the second reboot said exactly the same thing. It isn't the battery - I don't know what it is but it's much nastier than a dead battery :-( Doing some simple maths :- 2 ^ 32 = 4294967296 MAXINT = 4294967296 - 1 = 4294967295 4294967295 / 86400 = 49710.2696181 this is unlikely to be a battery problem. It looks as if some routine is not reading the date correctly and it is returning either 0 or MAXINT. For those that haven't clicked, 4294967295 is biggest number that can be represented in a 32 bit word and 86400 is the number of seconds in a day. Standard UTC uses the same 32 bits, that's why we have to worry about 2038 (1970 + 49000 days). Quite what the actual problem is, I don't know but I wouldn't be looking at changing batteries, I'd suspect some hardware incompatibility. Some numbers just ring funny :-) TTFN D ubuntu/uk-2007-10-06.txubuntu-uk [EMAIL PROTECTED] ++ | Dave Restall, Computer Nerd, Cyclist, Radio Amateur G4FCU, Bodger | | Mob +44 (0) 7973 831245 Skype: dave.restall Radio: G4FCU | | email : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : Not Ready Yet :-( | ++ | Any father who thinks he's all important should remind himself that| | this country honors fathers only one day a year while pickles get a| | whole week.| ++ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fsck forced on boot up due to date problems after update
Snip... Quite what the actual problem is, I don't know but I wouldn't be looking at changing batteries, I'd suspect some hardware incompatibility. Have you actually replaced the hard drive? Or at least run a decent disk checker on it (the one from Maxtor excellent)? Installing a whole new OS on a flakey harddrive is a recipe for disaster. In my experience once drive start showing back sectors they usually go bang pretty quickly. 40-60GB laptop drive are pretty cheap these days and most laptops have bays so they are easy to change. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fsck forced on boot up due to date problems after update
On Sat, 2007-10-06 at 09:11 +0100, David Restall - System Administrator wrote: Hi Rob, I've been trying to install Ubuntu 7.04 on my dad's Thinkpad R50e notebook this evening with not much luck. Snip... I then rebooted again, and during the reboot the machine complained about not having a disk check for about 49,710 days. It ran through the disk check and rebooted, it then on the second reboot said exactly the same thing. It isn't the battery - I don't know what it is but it's much nastier than a dead battery :-( Doing some simple maths :- 2 ^ 32 = 4294967296 MAXINT = 4294967296 - 1 = 4294967295 4294967295 / 86400 = 49710.2696181 this is unlikely to be a battery problem. It looks as if some routine is not reading the date correctly and it is returning either 0 or MAXINT. For those that haven't clicked, 4294967295 is biggest number that can be represented in a 32 bit word and 86400 is the number of seconds in a day. Standard UTC uses the same 32 bits, that's why we have to worry about 2038 (1970 + 49000 days). Quite what the actual problem is, I don't know but I wouldn't be looking at changing batteries, I'd suspect some hardware incompatibility. Some numbers just ring funny :-) TTFN Hi Honestly I've installed Ubuntu countless times, mostly servers. Since 7.04 i seem to get this every time! On different machines and VMs. I assumed this was just a lazy way of forcing a disk check after its been installed. So all i do is install, apt-get upgrade, reboot, reboot... and then all is fine after that... almost like a post install intentional mess that sorts itself out. Later, Michael -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fsck forced on boot up due to date problems after update
MailoGroups wrote: Snip... Quite what the actual problem is, I don't know but I wouldn't be looking at changing batteries, I'd suspect some hardware incompatibility. Have you actually replaced the hard drive? Or at least run a decent disk checker on it (the one from Maxtor excellent)? Installing a whole new OS on a flakey harddrive is a recipe for disaster. In my experience once drive start showing back sectors they usually go bang pretty quickly. 40-60GB laptop drive are pretty cheap these days and most laptops have bays so they are easy to change. It's a brand new Seagate Momentus 54200 2.5 Hard Drive, the old drive was faulty hence putting in this new one. I will check the drive when my dad is back from holiday. Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fsck forced on boot up due to date problems after update
Michael Holloway wrote: Hi Honestly I've installed Ubuntu countless times, mostly servers. Since 7.04 i seem to get this every time! On different machines and VMs. I assumed this was just a lazy way of forcing a disk check after its been installed. So all i do is install, apt-get upgrade, reboot, reboot... and then all is fine after that... almost like a post install intentional mess that sorts itself out. Later, Michael Ahh I'm glad I'm not the only one experiencing the problem. I'm hoping that 7.10 won't have any issues like this. I must admit 7.10 Beta looks okay. Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fsck forced on boot up due to date problems after update
Hi Rob just had that happen with my laptop. Inside is a tiny battery that powers the BIOS memory (or something). My laptop is awfully old, and the battery has finally gone flat. This means that every time my laptop is disconnected from the mains, it forgets all the settings I have made in the BIOS. It complains at me a lot, but I have got round it. The BIOS (as far as I am aware - I'm only 14, so don't quote me on this) manages the system clock as well - consequently, it forgets the time and date. Now, when I boot up, it complains that it has not had a system check for several thousand days (last time I worked it out, it was over 316 years). This obviously cannot be the case! When an error is found on the hd and the fsck reaches the end, it normally says something like this to me: Errors found on hda1! Linux is going down for reboot in 5! My guess is that all that needs to be done is to replace the battery. It is only a tiny round [lithium-ion?] battery. Hope this helped... as I said, I'm only 14, so I could be talking a load of rubbish... :P Farran On Fri, 2007-10-05 at 21:34 +0100, Rob Beard wrote: Hi folks, I've been trying to install Ubuntu 7.04 on my dad's Thinkpad R50e notebook this evening with not much luck. Basically my dad's had his laptop for a year and the hard drive developed bad sectors just after the warranty ran out. To complicate things further, the installation files were on the hard disk itself (good old Microsoft!). Now I have got a set of install disks for the laptop (my other half has exactly the same laptop) but I can't find them, so to get my dad up and running again I decided to install Ubuntu (okay, I'm hoping he moves over to Ubuntu). Now this is where the problem starts. I've installed Ubuntu 7.04 from a Desktop CD, it all appears to install okay, I've partitioned the drive as follows: / 20GB Ext3 /home 99GB Ext3 swap 1GB Swap I rebooted the machine after the install, so far so good. Everything booted up fine. I then went to install the updates (about 126 updates), again these installed fine. I then rebooted again, and during the reboot the machine complained about not having a disk check for about 49,710 days. It ran through the disk check and rebooted, it then on the second reboot said exactly the same thing. I checked the date and time, all were fine, I then reinstalled again. On the second reinstall it did exactly the same as before, reporting that the disk hadn't been checked for over 49,000 days, after the forced fsck it rebooted and then appeared to boot okay. I'm going to try Ubuntu 7.10 Beta, my dad goes away this weekend for a week and I needed to get his machine working. When he's back hopefully I'll be able to put the full release of 7.10 on the laptop (along with Windows if he really really wants it). Just wondered though if anyone else had seen this problem? Ta, Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fsck forced on boot up due to date problems after update
Inside is a tiny battery that powers the BIOS memory (or something). My laptop is awfully old, and the battery has finally gone flat. This means that every time my laptop is disconnected from the mains, it forgets all the settings I have made in the BIOS. It complains at me a lot, Sounds like it's worth looking at :-) I'm guessing that if Rob keeps his laptop plugged into the mains and restarts it then it shouldn't fsck if that's the problem then? Hope this helped... as I said, I'm only 14, so I could be talking a load of rubbish... :P Meh, doesn't matter how old you are mate ;-) Chris -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fsck forced on boot up due to date problems after update
Farran Lee wrote: Hi Rob just had that happen with my laptop. Inside is a tiny battery that powers the BIOS memory (or something). My laptop is awfully old, and the battery has finally gone flat. This means that every time my laptop is disconnected from the mains, it forgets all the settings I have made in the BIOS. It complains at me a lot, but I have got round it. The BIOS (as far as I am aware - I'm only 14, so don't quote me on this) manages the system clock as well - consequently, it forgets the time and date. Now, when I boot up, it complains that it has not had a system check for several thousand days (last time I worked it out, it was over 316 years). This obviously cannot be the case! When an error is found on the hd and the fsck reaches the end, it normally says something like this to me: Errors found on hda1! Linux is going down for reboot in 5! My guess is that all that needs to be done is to replace the battery. It is only a tiny round [lithium-ion?] battery. Hope this helped... as I said, I'm only 14, so I could be talking a load of rubbish... :P Farran Hi Farran, Thanks for the suggestion, the battery is fine, it also was running on the mains. The amount of days in question (over 49,700) works out at about 163 years, and it said the date was in the future! (so much for the Millenium bug!) Funny you should mention your age, I first found out about the BIOS batteries when I was about 13/14 when I first started learning about the hardware side of PCs - I put a password on the BIOS of my dad's PC and forgot the password, luckily the technician at my school at the time told me how to clear the CMOS :-) I've installed 7.10 Beta now, I'm actually quite impressed with it apart from having to jump through a load of hurdles to get DVD playback working (I'm sure it was easier under 7.04 after adding the Medibuntu repos). At least my dad's laptop is working now anyway. When he gets back from his holiday I'll try and do a fresh install of the full version of Ubuntu 7.10. Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
