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Full Version: Update about my system - hard drive issues and the (hopeful) solution
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This is just to update people about what's been going on with my system. I'd been getting increasing instability on my system, and at first I wasn't sure what was causing it. As a diagnostic test, I tried installing another Linux distro, and I got a lot of freezes with that too, and wound up having to do a hard shut-down. This told me it was probably a hardware issue since it happened no matter what idstro was installed. I was wondering what to do about that, since I wasn't ready to get a new hard drive or new computer yet. As an extra diagnostic, I tried installing an old version of Linux Lite (v 3.4), since I had the original CD around which I hadn't touched since I first installed it, and I knew that this system had been rock-solid-steady on LL3.4. So if anything should work, the LL3.4 should.

Well, the instability kept happening, even on LL3.4, which was probably not surprising since it was a hardware issue. The more serious problem was that it seemed to be getting progressively worse. My data files were backed up externally, so I wasn't worried about those.

Eventually, the system wouldn't boot at all!! Aaargh!!

I therefore wound up using the live CD of LL3.4 to figure out what was going on, since I couldn't boot normally anymore. I guessed I probably had bad blocks on the hard disk somewhere. Sure enough, running the badblocks command while in the live media showed me 5 bad blocks, they were near the first 30G of the hard drive (the one that I had installed Linux on, that it was booting from) so the Linux OS probably had some corruption as a result, explaining the freezes.

So, I decided to avoid using the first 30 gigs of the disk altogether. I tried a fresh install of Linux Lite 3.4, but with a different partitioning scheme where I put the LL in a partition toward the end of the hard disk, instead of at the start where the bad blocks were. I figured that the end was also a part of the disk that had been used less, so hopefully it would be safer in general.

Well, the install appeared to work successfully, but when I booted up without the media, I wound up in the grub_rescue prompt. Aaaarghhh again!

I followed an online tutorial for what to do if you wind up in grub_rescue https://www.linux.com/learn/how-rescue-n...ub-2-linux - I did the bits in the subheading "Booting from grub-rescue>" to fix the non-booting, but the start of the article had helpful background info and explanations that I needed first.

Finally, I had a bootable system. I booted and shut down normally a couple of times just for the joy of it, because it had been awhile since I'd been able to do that. ;D

Anyway, this is why I'm running 3.4 and not a higher version - it took so long to configure everything and do all of that, that I'm scared of making any more changes. I realize that this is just a "for now" measure because the hard drive is failing, and eventually in the longer term I need to get a new machine (plus back up my data frequently in the meatime). I'm hoping to hang onto this one as long as I can though.

And, the new name for my machine is phoenix  Wink
You could try "fixing" the bad blocks using gparted. The link might give you ideas and squeeze some more life out of the hdd but in the end a new hdd will be a must.

Code:
https://www.addictivetips.com/ubuntu-linux-tips/fix-a-bad-hard-drive-on-linux/

Hope this helps Smile
Well i had the same problem .NO BOOT. I use the life cd and from there i use that in this site. all was 100% after use the fix in LL 3.8
And yes i still have 3 bad blocks
https://www.howtogeek.com/114884/how-to-...wont-boot/and use only those bellow
[pre]sudo apt-add-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair


sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair
boot-repair[/pre]

arxontas