Error 18 : Selected Cylinder Exceeds BIOS [SOLVED]

[bullet_trap]

I have a Compaq Presario CQ5320F with 500G hard drive and 3GB Ram.  It runs an AMD Athlon II X2 240 Dual-Core processor.  The unit came with Windows 7 installed.  I installed PCLOS 2009 onto the whole hard drive in January 2010.  When PCLOS 2010 came out, I installed over it.  I have taken all the updates using Synaptic and all was doing fine until about a week ago.  I turned the machine on and, as usual, the GRUB menu appeared showing "Linux"  and other selections.  When I hit "enter", I got an error message "Error 18: Selected Cylinder Exceeds Bios".  I turned the machine off and back on again; and, this time it booted correctly into Linux.  Since that time, I have noticed that if the computer stays off for a few hours, I will get the same error.  Once it has booted correctly, I can reboot or do a complete shutdown and then power back up with NO problem.  Today my first power up required 3 restarts before taking off.  Below is my menu.lst.  I wonder if it has something is wrong??

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,4)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=eb4b2b11-fc42-469b-ac64-46fab1901d23 resume=UUID=73531028-81e1-43d2-98c9-e970fbc7e314 splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img

title linux-nonfb
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=UUID=eb4b2b11-fc42-469b-ac64-46fab1901d23 resume=UUID=73531028-81e1-43d2-98c9-e970fbc7e314
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=UUID=eb4b2b11-fc42-469b-ac64-46fab1901d23 failsafe
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img


Any Ideas??

[Was_Just19]

I would check the motherboard battery. Maybe replace it if it is a little old.

[kjpetrie]

Motherboard battery? (Just19 beat me to it)

Hard drive lubrication too viscous when cold?

A capacitor failing?

The message is GRUB's interpretation of the error the BIOS reports when it fails to boot, and it fails to boot when the machine has been off for a while, so it's probably either temperature or charge-related.

Error messages are not always 100% accurate, especially since you're not moving your partition between boot attempts.

[bullet_trap]

Thanks for the info about the mother board battery.  I'll pull it out and get another one tomorrow.   

Thanks. 

[bullet_trap]

Got a new battery, installed it, and I'm happy again!! hehe   
Thanks guys!!

[Was_Just19]

Glad to hear it was that easy 

[T6]

"Hard drive lubrication too viscous when cold?"

i have dissembled many hard disks after died, the electrical engine in it has very little to no lubrication, probably to avoid any damage to the metallic platters and the very sensible material in it

[bullet_trap]

After only 3 reboots, my computer went back to giving me the Error 18 message again.  It was not the battery as I had hoped.  Another friend was telling me about SpinRite.  This program extensively works on the surface of the harddrive checking for errors and somehow recovers data and corrects problems.  So, I purchased it and gave it a try.  I applied the Level 4 to my drive and 30+ hours later it was finished.  I have since rebooted the system a dozen or more times without a failure.  If you read the information on their web site, http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm,  it makes it sound like a miracle worker.  Well!  I'm convinced!  The "Smart" feature on my computer had told me the drive was failing.  Now ALL is healed!

Before learning of SpinRite, I purchased a new harddrive to replace the old one.  Now I plan to clone the old one to the new drive and have a backup on the shelf. 

[Was_Just19]

I got Spinrite many years ago when running Win, but had no success with it.

I tried it on two drives which had bad sections - which I had partitioned off so they did not interfere.

Running Spinrite on the two drives killed them completely.

I have not used it since.

[T6]

in this case if the hard disk shows surface errors and can't boot i can't trust on it because probabilities of see it fail again soon are very very high

if you can't fix a error on the hard disk with a normal check, a complete format or a low level format(dban or another tool), to me, is not reliable anymore and then i abandon it

it is nice to have new magnets after disassemble it