BIOS problem

[minesheep]

Try to remove the main battery and power cord for few minutes and then check the time and date on the BIOS

You can also try to remove the main battery, the charger, and the bios time battery at the same time and then put them back and re-set BIOS settings.

[pelouk]

Hi  TheDead,  I'll try that trick of removing the main battery etc.  I did follow your advice DeepThought and tried the live usb with which I installed LL 3.8. Got through to the LL start screen but didn't know how to proceed from there. Should I go ahead and try to re-install 3.8?

[DeepThought]

[member=421]pelouk[/member]  If you have nothing important on the hdd you could try and reinstall, all depends if the 250Gb is still usable. The idea of using the live usb was to get to the desktop and see if the hdd would show as a removable drive. The commands I mentioned could be done from the terminal in a live session.

When the partition drive comes up during the reinstall check which drive shows, you might find it tries to reinstall to your usb drive rather than the 250Gb drive if as I suspect the hdd has failed.

Either way you will know for certain if the hdd is usable

[minesheep]

Open program called disks on live session and check HDD SMART data if it is OK or bad.

[pelouk]

Here's the latest.
I tried running the usb drive with LL 3.8. Could not get it to re-install, just got the splash screen with the big feather and it wouldn't go beyond that.
I did manage to start in safe mode and could see from system/partition drives that the only drive appeared to be the usb already in use. I was unable to use terminal effectively because the keyboard was garbled (e.g sudo blkid was showing as s4d6 fd5s2).  I did, lastly, try the tip with removing the battery, etc and the date & time remained ok.

One final question because you guys have been very patient with my lack of knowledge. It does seem that the suspicion that the HD is shot appears to be correct.  I had anyway been thinking of replacing it with a SSD which I could get locally quite cheaply. Do you think that's worth a shot?

[minesheep]

I was unable to use terminal effectively because the keyboard was garbled (e.g sudo blkid was showing as s4d6 fd5s2).

sudo's ascii is 115, 117, 100, 111 and in binary it is 01110011, 01110101, 01100100, 01101111
s4d6's ascii is 115, 52, 100, 54    and in binary it is 01110011, 00110100, 01100100, 00110110

Also pretty weird to note that "d" in sudo was registered as d but in blkid it was reqistered as "2"

d have ascii (in lower case) 100 and 2 have ascii 50
so d in binary        01100100
    2 in binary        00110010

looks like your keyboard cable is moving to wrong location inside your laptop. It probably have like 8 or 10 thin cables to move key presses to computer from keyboard and these cables may be shifting.

[DeepThought]

[member=421]pelouk[/member]  [member=9185]minesheep[/member]  The garbled message is probably because Linux Lite has Numlock enabled as default in a live session.
You can disable Numlock using one of your keyboards Fn keys.

An ssd would be a good option.

[minesheep]

[member=421]pelouk[/member]  [member=9185]minesheep[/member]  The garbled message is probably because Linux Lite has Numlock enabled as default in a live session.
You can disable Numlock using one of your keyboards Fn keys.

No numlock won't turn letters into numbers

d in binary        01100100
2 in binary        00110010

All bits have moved to right it is (clear) contact issue.

[pelouk]

Hi DeepThought and minesweep.  I managed to release the Num lock and got the keyboard going - I'm actually sending this using Firefox on the laptop. Re-trying the terminal instructions produces the following:-

inux@linux:~$ sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: LABEL="LINUX LITE" UUID="E613-A103" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="006d6afc-01"
/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"
linux@linux:~$


linux@linux:~$ sudo fdisk -1
fdisk: invalid option -- '1'

Usage:
fdisk [options] <disk>      change partition table
fdisk [options] -l [<disk>] list partition table(s)

Display or manipulate a disk partition table.

Options:
-b, --sector-size <size>      physical and logical sector size
-B, --protect-boot            don't erase bootbits when create a new label
-c, --compatibility[=<mode>]  mode is 'dos' or 'nondos' (default)
-L, --color[=<when>]          colorize output (auto, always or never)
                                colors are enabled by default
-l, --list                    display partitions end exit
-o, --output <list>          output columns
-t, --type <type>            recognize specified partition table type only
-u, --units[=<unit>]          display units: 'cylinders' or 'sectors' (default)
-s, --getsz                  display device size in 512-byte sectors [DEPRECATED]
    --bytes                  print SIZE in bytes rather than in human readable format

-C, --cylinders <number>      specify the number of cylinders
-H, --heads <number>          specify the number of heads
-S, --sectors <number>        specify the number of sectors per track

I can't, of course decipher that and still suspect the hard disk is knackered. What do you reckon?

[DeepThought]

[member=421]pelouk[/member]

Code:

inux@linux:~$ sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: LABEL="LINUX LITE" UUID="E613-A103" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="006d6afc-01"
/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"
linux@linux:~$

That shows your usb drive with Linux Lite.
Your internal hdd is not showing so I would say it has failed.

The sudo fdisk -l command is actually a small L not 1, but using the command will probably give you the same result and not show your internal hdd.