Big Grub Issue

[Fintan]

@tuenis: Yes suspemd to RAM / disk.

I will run the S.M.A.R.T tools

@Steve: Rebooting the running machine is no problem. The problem occurs when I boot after the machine has been shut down for a longer period of time.

I ran

fdisk -l

this gives nothing:

fintan3@fintanws4:~$ fdisk -l
fintan3@fintanws4:~$

[SteveRiley]

SWAG: how old is the CMOS battery in your computer? I have seen some pretty flaky stuff happen when the button cell battery on the motherboard starts to die.

[Fintan]

OK, I have to use sudo fidisk -l:

fintan3@fintanws4:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa42bb74f

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 1251327 624640 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 1253374 624928767 311837697 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 624928768 625140399 105816 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda5 1253376 49899519 24323072 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 616402944 624928767 4262912 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 112007168 571004927 229498880 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 49901568 112005119 31051776 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 571006976 616400895 22696960 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order
fintan3@fintanws4:~$

A short gave me this:

fintan3@fintanws4:~$ sudo smartctl -t short -d ata /dev/sda
smartctl 6.2 2013-04-20 r3812 [x86_64-linux-3.11.9-031109-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF OFFLINE IMMEDIATE AND SELF-TEST SECTION ===
Sending command: "Execute SMART Short self-test routine immediately in off-line mode".
Drive command "Execute SMART Short self-test routine immediately in off-line mode" successful.
Testing has begun.
Please wait 2 minutes for test to complete.
Test will complete after Fri Dec 13 08:39:27 2013

Use smartctl -X to abort test.
fintan3@fintanws4:~$ sudo smartctl -l selftest -d ata /dev/sda
smartctl 6.2 2013-04-20 r3812 [x86_64-linux-3.11.9-031109-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Short offline Completed: read failure 90% 7019 110709179
# 2 Short offline Completed: read failure 90% 7019 110709179
# 3 Short offline Completed: read failure 90% 6934 110709179
# 4 Extended offline Completed: read failure 80% 6933 110709179
# 5 Short offline Completed without error 00% 6933 -
# 6 Short offline Aborted by host 90% 6933 -
# 7 Short offline Completed without error 00% 6933 -

fintan3@fintanws4:~$

and error log:

fintan3@fintanws4:~$ sudo smartctl -l error /dev/sda
smartctl 6.2 2013-04-20 r3812 [x86_64-linux-3.11.9-031109-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

fintan3@fintanws4:~$

I will do a long test now.

[Fintan]

cmos battery is still the original. about 2 years +/-

[SteveRiley]

Hm, not so old then. I'm flummoxed -- how does a computer forget to boot after sitting idle for a few days?

[Fintan]

A few hours will do it

[Fintan]

The long smart test will be finished in about 40 min.

I may just get a new HD.

I would like to do this as harmlessly (timewise) as possible.
I have never done this on linux. On windows I used nortan to make a copy of my partitions and then copy them over to the new disk. This was over ten years ago!

Can I do this with pmagic live cd and clonezilla?

[SteveRiley]

The following will work only if the physical capacity of the new drive is equal to or greater than that of the old drive.

1. Remove the data connector from the old drive.

2. Attach the new drive to this connector.

3. Attach the old drive to some other connector.

4. Boot PartitionMagic or GParted Live.

5. Verify that /dev/sda is the new blank drive and /dev/sdb is the old drive:

mkdir -p /mnt/a

mount /dev/sda /mnt/a

ls -al /mnt/a  [COLOR="#B22222"]<-- should be blank[/COLOR]

umount /mnt/a

mkdir -p /mnt/b

mount /dev/sdb /mnt/b

ls -al /mnt/b  [COLOR="#B22222"]<-- should have your stuff[/COLOR]

umount /mnt/b

6. Copy the old drive to the new:

dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sda bs=16M

Do not mix up the order of sdb and sda in the command above, or else you'll have copied a blank drive onto your existing drive!

Follow the next two steps if your new drive has a physical capacity greater than your old drive.

7. Reboot, still using your PartitionMagic or GParted Live (easiest way to get the new partition tables in memory)

8. Open the GUI partition manager and resize your partitions as you see fit. There will be some blank space on the drive that you can use.

[Fintan]

Ok. I was thinking of cloning to an external drive first then removing the old drive and inserting the new drive, then cloning back from ext. drive to new drive. I have a few partitions on the old drive and would like to keep them as is. will the dd command take care of that for me?

[SteveRiley]

My procedure copies the entire drive, including the partition table and every partition. The new drive will be a bit-for-bit duplicate of the old one, plus some unused space if it's bigger.

I prefer to write to the new drive using the same controller that I'll be reading from once dd is finished. Thus my suggestion of plugging the new drive into the space occupied by the old one, and connecting the old one someplace else. In your situation, the old drive should go in the external enclosure. Then you need to run dd only once -- from the drive in the enclosure (the old one) to the internal drive (the new one).

[SteveRiley]

Well, hang on -- I'm assuming here that your enclosure can hold your internal drive. If it can't, then yeah, you'll need to run dd twice, in the pattern you mentioned.

[Fintan]

So, just to get this straight I dd from old drive to ext. drive. Replace old with new and then dd from ext. to new.

[SteveRiley]

If you can't place your old drive in the external enclosure, then yes, your statement is correct.

[Fintan]

OK. Great I will give that a whirl. Cheers

[vinnywright]

sory for jumping in late ,,,,,and if you have done the disk copy already I suppose it dose not mater ,,, but wile reading this thread I did not notes if you had the problem wile restarting the box (from a shutdown) or waking it up from a suspend ?

and suspend to RAM and suspend to disk are 2 different things ,,,,,,,,,,,in your post #31 you say "yes suspend to RAM / disk" like it's the same thing , it is not.

so is this happening from a shutdown or from a suspend .


VINNY