[plug] Debian puzzle, very weird (IDE, kernel)

[indy at THE-TECH.MIT.EDU]

On Mon, Apr 07, 2003 at 08:54:12PM +0800, Leon Brooks wrote:
> On Monday 07 April 2003 19:58, indy at THE-TECH.MIT.EDU wrote:
> > I'm a bit of a layer 1 guy... but it sounds like HD controller to me,
> > (assuming you're using "normal" kernels)
> 
> On two machines at once, that haven't been physically touched in months, we 
> think not. (-:
> 
> > of course, it could be kernel or baseutils trouble, but i'm assuming
> > you didn't brew your own in a particlarly exotic way, so that would seem
> > to be unlikely..
> 
> Kernel hadn't been rebuilt in a long time, build was trimming only and no 
> fancy patches. Each machine was done individually a week apart about 8-9 
> months ago (one was up over 200 days until last week when we started looking 
> at this).


uhhh.. ok ... kernel incompatibility with your hardware?
specifically either memory or HD interface.

An anecdote: 
a couple of weeks ago, my desktop (running woody and 2.4.18)
suffered a loss of power. On reboot, fsck goes thru no problem.
Sadly, something doesn't quite work. Turns out the HD geometry
is slightly askew, BIOS and OS and fs no longer agree on the exact
position of the start of the disk. Hence, intermittent boot problems.
Surgery required.

Don't know if it helps, but the evidence does point to a fs related issue.
Sorry for suggesting you suck eggs, but install a 2.2 kernel, see what happens?
Debian is pretty good about kerenl swapping and playing.
Do you have a debian CD? Try booting with 2.4bf...?


Indy

-- 
Indranath Neogy
<indy at the-tech.mit.edu>