Fedora 8 booting up process repeating before log-in

[awesomo]

Sometimes when I first start up my computer which has Fedora 8 installed, the booting up process goes back to the beginning just before it gets to the log-in screen. Does anyone know of any likely cause of this problem? The only thing I can think of is that the primary booting device in the BIOS settings needs changed. Is this a likely cause?

I am fairly new to Linux. These are the details of my system:

Release: 2.6.24.4-64.fc8
Machine : i686
Processor: AMD Athlon 1100MhZ
MemTotal: 1034864 kB
Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce MX 440 with AGP8X
Monitor: Dell E172FP

I would be very grateful for any help.

[awesomo]

Would the contents of /var/log/dmesg give an indication of any errors as Fedora 8 is starting? I've attached dmesg.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[awesomo]

Anyone got any ideas?

Tried Googling for anything suspicious in /var/log/messages and /var/log/dmesg, but I am still getting this problem as Fedora 8 tries to boot.

[bingoUV]

1. Does it happen at no time other than around login time? i.e. spontaneous reboot?

2. Has this computer ever run any other operating system? BSD family, windows, solaris etc? Would it be easy for you to try installing some other operating system?

I am asking these questions so that we can ascertain whether these are hardware issues.

[awesomo]

Originally Posted by bingoUV

1. Does it happen at no time other than around login time? i.e. spontaneous reboot?

2. Has this computer ever run any other operating system? BSD family, windows, solaris etc? Would it be easy for you to try installing some other operating system?

I am asking these questions so that we can ascertain whether these are hardware issues.

Hi bingoUV, thanks for the reply.

1. No, it only happens at that stage and doesn't happen every time I start my computer (happens roughly every 5 times or something).

2. Yes, the computer has had a few operating systems installed prior to Fedora 8. I started with Windows XP, then an earlier release of Fedora (5 or 6), then Ubuntu (not sure what release), Fedora 7 and Mandriva from a DVD I got with a magazine. I think I could probably install another operating system but would prefer not to as I am very happy with Fedora 8 in general.

Thanks very much for your help.

[awesomo]

Do you think that there are traces of the previous operating systems I had still on the hard disks? Is it possible for me to check for this?

Thanks again.