Boot Up Problems

[MaskedOne]

So lately for some reason when I'm trying to boot pclos it will go to the OS loading screen and the progress bar will go across very slow (maybe 5 minutes). It then reboots my computer and runs through loading a second time but much quicker and loads fully. It always takes twice now for some reason. Any ideas? And yes my pclos is up to date. If any diagnostic info is needed letme know and I can post it back here.

[Hootiegibbon]

MaskedOne,

During the boot process press the <esc> key to get a verbose boot screen (ie states what its doing) and report back with what it shows.

Also when booted use pastebin to show the results of dmesg directly after boot

one easy wy to do this is to open a file manager navigate to your Documents directory and the open a terminal there then type 'dmesg > dmesg.txt' (without the quotes) and post te contents of the dmesg file to pastbin , then link to the paste bin in this thread

Jase  

[MaskedOne]

Here is the link to the results:

http://pastebin.com/NmM2pKcY

[Hootiegibbon]

MaskedOne,

we now know what a sucessful boot looks like , how often is is it your install reboots? (ie x in y no of reboots)

I would suggest you adjust your menu.lst in /boot/grub/ so that the slpash=silent  reads  splash=verbose

this will give much more boot time info , and hopefully outline the issue.

Could you also post the contents  of /etc/fstab ( try 'cat /etc/fstab >ftab.txt' in a terminal and post the contents of that file )

Jase

[MaskedOne]

Certainly,
   Here is what my fstab looks like:  (Oh and the bootup issue happens anytime I start up the computer. I usually don't restart or turn off my computer very often.)


# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>

#Entry for /dev/sda6 :
UUID=127a8a4b-0672-4a95-91e9-2fcb06b185db   /   ext2   defaults,user_xattr   1   1
#Entry for /dev/sda2 :
UUID=6666B0C566B096F1   /media/FACTORY_IMAGE   ntfs-3g   defaults,locale=en_US.UTF-8,umask=000   0   0
#Entry for /dev/sda1 :
UUID=66EEAE72EEAE3A67   /media/HP   ntfs-3g   defaults,nosuid,nodev,locale=en_US.UTF-8,umask=000   0   0
none   /proc   proc   defaults   0   0
#Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=7e0501ad-acac-41c6-8c6e-16dd18e618e3   swap   swap   defaults   0   0
none   /dev/pts   devpts   defaults   0   0

[Hootiegibbon]

Looking at the fstab it confirms my thoughts that you are using etx2 as your file system, it could be that it is checking the file system on each boot instead of every 37 reboots(iirc)

It is possible to change /upgrade  a ext2 or ext3 file systems to be ext4 non-distructivly, I will search for the instructions on how to do it and report back (I would suggest you backup your content too - just in case)

Jase

[MaskedOne]

Hmm odd that it installed ext2 by default... honestly didn't even realize it wasn't at least ext3. What I find odd is that it only recently started doing this, about a month ago I didn't have the problem.

[djohnston]

Hmm odd that it installed ext2 by default... honestly didn't even realize it wasn't at least ext3. What I find odd is that it only recently started doing this, about a month ago I didn't have the problem.

The default filesystem when installing is actually ext4. You have to choose another filesystem during installation to change that default.

[Rudge]

Hmm odd that it installed ext2 by default... honestly didn't even realize it wasn't at least ext3. What I find odd is that it only recently started doing this, about a month ago I didn't have the problem.

The default filesystem when installing is actually ext4. You have to choose another filesystem during installation to change that default.

I think +1 on this. You have to go "out of your way" to install ext2.  Pretty sure.

[Xenaflux]

Pretty sure.
P

Very pretty sure, as in " click-click-click "
 

[DeBaas]

When the time stamp on your HDD is "in the future" You would have startup problems. After first boot, time is synced with the internet.
At second boot the time is already corrected and the machine start as expected.
Cause ? empty back-up battery CR2032.
Just a thought.....
Ed

[MaskedOne]

Thanks DeBaas I'll look into that. That would be one answer that would make sense since it never was an issue before.

[MaskedOne]

Alright so with no changed whatsoever my computer is restarting normally...so apparently something auto-updated or something recently and fixed it lol. Ah well. I would still be very interesting in knowing how to upgrade from ext2 to current ext4 though in a non-reinstall or destructive manner if possible? Otherwise is there much of a problem with staying on ext2?

[Old-Polack]

Alright so with no changed whatsoever my computer is restarting normally...so apparently something auto-updated or something recently and fixed it lol. Ah well. I would still be very interesting in knowing how to upgrade from ext2 to current ext4 though in a non-reinstall or destructive manner if possible? Otherwise is there much of a problem with staying on ext2?

Converting from ext2 to ext4 is a multi step process, performed as root. First you must add a journal, making the ext2 filesystem into an ext3 filesystem. Then you can convert the ext3 to an ext4 filesystem. Last you must run e2fsck with certain parameters to check and fix some on disk structures. Below are the steps involved;

To change an ext2 filesystem to ext3 (enabling the journal feature), use the command:

[root@localhost ~]# tune2fs -j /dev/<whatever>                    <Enter>

Replace <whatever> with the actual partition designation... sda1, sda2, sdb1, sdb2, etc.

To enable the ext4 features on an existing ext3 filesystem, use the command:

[root@localhost ~]# tune2fs -O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index /dev/<whatever>                   <Enter>

After running this command (specifically, after setting the uninit_bg parameter), you MUST run e2fsck to fix up some on-disk structures that tune2fs has modified:

[root@localhost ~]# e2fsck -fDC0 /dev/<whatever>                   <Enter>

Being as this is your / partition you need to do the above from the liveCD, with the partition unmounted. You will also have to mount the partition, after the conversion, edit your /etc/fstab to show ext4 in place of ext2 for each partition converted and listed in fstab. Last, you need to chroot into the mounted / partition and run mkinitrd to create a new initrd image for the booting kernel, that includes support for the new ext4 filesystem, or the kernel will panic when trying to mount the / partition.

[Hootiegibbon]

The following is from old notes of mine but I think is complete - if someone could check...

ensure that anything important to you is backed up....

1>Boot from a LiveCD. You can’t convert a file system that has been mounted.

2>             /dev/sda? = the partition you are converting
                             You need to know the partition name

to convert from ext2 to ext4:

su <root password>
tune2fs -O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index,has_journal /dev/sda?


to convert ext3 to ext4:

su <root password>
tune2fs -O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index /dev/sda?


3>then check the partition
e2fsck -pf /dev/sda?

4>Check the partition will mount.

mount -t ext4 /dev/sda1 /mnt

Check you can see teh contents in the /mnt directory (ls /mnt <tab> should work.


5> Edit your /etc/fstab file to reflect the change. edit the /etc/fstab and chanfe the partions reference from either ext2 or ext3 ext4. Save and close.

6> not 100 % sure its needed but get grub to check all is well with it with

grub-install /dev/sda --root-directory=/mnt --recheck

7> Reboot.

if the above has done its job you should have a ext4 partition without reformatting