updating causing all sorts of issues

[dwsdad]

Remember my last post about having problems during the update? Well, it's gotten a lot worse.

My system is now spontaneously rebooting. This last time it did it right in the middle of me trying to fix apt-get using dpkg configure -a. Now at boot time I'm getting a kernel panic. not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block.

running updates has gotten to be very hazardous on my system and I'm now hesitant to do it - IF I can even revive the system without a complete rebuild.

Any ideas.....again?

[dibl]

Re: updating causing all sorts of issues

That sounds much more like a hardware issue than anything that an OS would do, unless the OS is really, really broken.

Possible causes in hardware:

- hard drive controller/interface fault (thus the "not syncing" error)
- Power supply defect (intermittent open solder joint or transformer sag)
- memory fault
- other motherboard circuit fault


Most of these can be intermittent, and change with the thermal conditions.

How does it run with a Live CD?

[dwsdad]

Re: updating causing all sorts of issues

I'm beginning to wonder about the hardware. One reboot told me the default boot device had changed, so I went in and checked that and found it ok.

I downloaded 7.10 and tried to boot with that. First attempt failed. Second attempt worked, but when I tried to mount the harddrive using Konqueror, I got a UID 999 error. I just looked that up and found a workaround by doing a sudo to mount the drive manually. I hope to recover the data I want, then do a fresh install of 7.10.

If this is a hardware issue, I'm really upset because this is a fairly new system.