Fedora OS crash on dualboot Vista comp

[richardpd]

Hi
This morning I started my PBell desktop (dual booting Fedora/Vista) and Fedora opened fine.
I am a new user to Fedora
(see my fedora forum intro at http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=259419).

I started making entries in a text file with gEdit & when I saved it took a long while to complete the save (I had only entered a few lines of text).
I then created a new folder in my home folder & tried to move other folders in to the new one but suddenly all the folders disappeared and the computer hung/froze. I tried a restart but again this did not complete fully (the cursor turned into a 'brick' & the progress bar hung).
I had to switch off & when I restarted I got Disk Read error. I tried switching off/on again and got Grub cursor. I switched off & on again & this time was told to put system disc in (I do not have a disc as I installed Fedora with USB install).
So I switched off and left the computer for 15 minutes & when I switched on again it started Fedora normally.

I experienced similar crashes with Ubuntu10.04 dual booting with Vista & this was the reason I decided to leave Ubuntu & install Fedora. When I used Ubuntu I did a DejaDup backup & I tried to use this with the DejaDup in Fedora to restore my data to Fedora but it didn't work.

It appears there is some issue with my computer running Linux (dual boot Vista)-either Fedora or Ubuntu. How do I find out what the problem with my computer is and how do I proceed now?

I look forward to and I am grateful for sound & helpful advice. Thanks

[glennzo]

To me, this seems like a hardware issue. It seems as if the system lost contact with the hard disk. Try reinserting the IDE cable for the hard disk, both at the disk and on the main board. While you're in there you may as well remove any accumulated dust. Maybe this will help.

[richardpd]

Thanks for your advice. I will try it!
I dusted the computer to help the fan some months ago & that was a big help.
I dislike getting into the system case-quite fiddly but I will have to do it again as soon as I can & check connections & dust it again. I hope this will fix it-time will tell!

[LongTimeDabbler]

Sometimes drives act like this before they go belly up for good. I.E. good be a harddrive dying a slow painful death. Probably not what you want to hear but should be a prompt to make sure all needed info is backed up both linux/windows.

[richardpd]

Hi
Thanks for your reply. It could be a bad disk problem (what disk checks can I run to test for bad sectors?).
This would definitely not be good news.

Could it though just be a problem between Linux Fedora (& Ubuntu from my earlier experience) coexisting with Vista as dual boot?
(I haven't yet been into the case to recheck connections & dust).

To further show the problem it is causing after I switched on to Fedora first thing this morning I again edited a text file in gEdit but after I saved my edit,gEdit vanished!
Then I tried to open FireFox & I got an error message saying could not launch child process.
I tried to reboot & got the same problem I described before (cursor turned to a 'brick' and progress bar hung.
I switched on & off but while Fedora said it had booted it only left the background & had no taskbars or desktop icons so I switched on & off again & this time I got Geom Error. I switched off for 15 mins and thankfully Fedora booted & I am posting this note!

I know next to nothing about bootup procedure/bios settings in Vista or Linux so Grub is a big mystery to me presently!
Anyway this problem is most frustrating & somehow I need to fix it!

I also hit a big problem trying to install phpMyAdmin yesterday (I have installed MYSQL + Apache httpd for localhost server). I kept getting asked for username & password from trying to access http://localhost/phpmyadmin.
Nothing I put in or edited worked! Again hugely frustrating & I spent hours with this yesterday!

Again helpful advice is most welcome-many thanks

[LongTimeDabbler]

I would think dual boot problems are for the most part binary in that either the thing boots or it doesn't. I'm not sure I've ever heard of problems related to dual boot where the thing boots but then acts squirrely. I'm not ruling it out - just never have heard of it or experienced it. Again, I'd make sure I had all mission critical data from both windows and linux well backed up because my number 1 bet is a harddrive that's about to bite the dust for good. I'm quite sure that there are diags programs that would test a harddrive can't point you to any though.

[richardpd]

Thanks for your reply LongTimeDabbler

The thing I find a little intriguing/interesting is that Vista runs fine on the drive (not crashing at all-let alone regularly.Granted it sometimes runs slower than I would like but that is a somewhat normal feature for Vista). Why shouldn't any Linux flavour/distro run fine on the drive? Which is the most stable OS? Vista or Linux (Ubuntu or Fedora)? There are so many variables here it is difficult to precisely identify the exact cause of this dual booting problem and so to try to take an efficient step/s to fix it! I cannot continue with computing with Linux like this (it may drive me insane/mad if I have to keep fixing problem after problem in this fashion & cannot get on with the work I want and must do on the computer).
I write this from my primary Vista computer as Fedora has again crashed but earlier today I was having a problem with yum on it. It wouldn't work giving an error message about repo fusion (cannot access it or something?! and needing /bin/sh as a dependancy). I tried to add automake1.9 via yum but it wouldn't install & trying to do it via http I get automake needs a bunch of other stuff dependancies! A bit of a nightmare. From Ubuntu I remember apt had a fix when it broke.Now when I get back on it I need to somehow fix this for yum....
Best wishes

[LongTimeDabbler]

Well that does shed a little bit of light on things. I agree it's hard to imagine a HW issue affecting only Fedora and not Vista. In that case,
since you are describing all sorts of issues with dependencies - maybe the Fedora install has been messed up due to something wrong with packages, dependencies etc.

You mentioned a dependency with /bin/sh - it's hard for me to imagine a healthy system without /bin/sh. All the startup scripts depend on this AFAIK. What do you get when you do

 ls /bin/sh

You might consider reinstalling Fedora if you suspect the install is messed up. Note that again this would not be a "dual boot" issue. This would instead be a "messed up fedora install that just happens to coexist with windows" issue. In this case the dual boot is actually a good thing because it provides a builtin hw sanity test. I'd reiterate what I said earlier which is that dual boot problems usually show up as something not booting - not as something booting and not working properly.

However take all this with a grain of salt - I'm just giving you my gut reactions - in essence I'm just guessing - in the absence of any firm evidence.

[richardpd]

Hi
At the moment I do not understand what is wrong with my Fedora14 install.
Should there be more output after ls /bin/sh ?
[Richard@Chris-PC ~]$ sudo rpm -ivh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/...ble.noarch.rpm
[sudo] password for Richard:
Retrieving http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/...ble.noarch.rpm
warning: /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.HrxSej: Header V3 RSA/SHA256 Signature, key ID 16ca1a56: NOKEY
error: Failed dependencies:
/bin/sh is needed by rpmfusion-free-release-12-3.noarch
system-release >= 12 is needed by rpmfusion-free-release-12-3.noarch
[Richard@Chris-PC ~]$ ls /bin/sh
/bin/sh


[Richard@Chris-PC ~]$ yum repolist all
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, langpacks, presto, refresh-packagekit
Adding en_GB to language list
Repository adobe-linux-i386 is listed more than once in the configuration
Determining fastest mirrors
repo id repo name status
adobe-linux-i386 Adobe Systems Incorporate enabled: 0
fedora Fedora $releasever - i386 enabled: 0
fedora-debuginfo Fedora $releasever - i386 disabled
fedora-source Fedora $releasever - Sour disabled
remi Les RPM de remi pour Fedo disabled
remi-test Les RPM de remi en test p disabled
rpmfusion-free RPM Fusion for Fedora $re enabled: 0
rpmfusion-free-debuginfo RPM Fusion for Fedora $re disabled
rpmfusion-free-rawhide RPM Fusion for Fedora Raw disabled
rpmfusion-free-rawhide-debuginfo RPM Fusion for Fedora Raw disabled
rpmfusion-free-rawhide-source RPM Fusion for Fedora Raw disabled
rpmfusion-free-source RPM Fusion for Fedora $re disabled
rpmfusion-free-updates RPM Fusion for Fedora $re enabled: 0
rpmfusion-free-updates-debuginfo RPM Fusion for Fedora $re disabled
rpmfusion-free-updates-source RPM Fusion for Fedora $re disabled
rpmfusion-free-updates-testing RPM Fusion for Fedora $re disabled
rpmfusion-free-updates-testing-debuginfo RPM Fusion for Fedora $re disabled
rpmfusion-free-updates-testing-source RPM Fusion for Fedora $re disabled
rpmfusion-nonfree RPM Fusion for Fedora $re enabled: 0
rpmfusion-nonfree-debuginfo RPM Fusion for Fedora $re disabled
rpmfusion-nonfree-rawhide RPM Fusion for Fedora Raw disabled
rpmfusion-nonfree-rawhide-debuginfo RPM Fusion for Fedora Raw disabled
rpmfusion-nonfree-rawhide-source RPM Fusion for Fedora Raw disabled
rpmfusion-nonfree-source RPM Fusion for Fedora $re disabled
rpmfusion-nonfree-updates RPM Fusion for Fedora $re enabled: 0
rpmfusion-nonfree-updates-debuginfo RPM Fusion for Fedora $re disabled
rpmfusion-nonfree-updates-source RPM Fusion for Fedora $re disabled
rpmfusion-nonfree-updates-testing RPM Fusion for Fedora $re disabled
rpmfusion-nonfree-updates-testing-debuginfo RPM Fusion for Fedora $re disabled
rpmfusion-nonfree-updates-testing-source RPM Fusion for Fedora $re disabled
updates Fedora $releasever - i386 enabled: 0
updates-debuginfo Fedora $releasever - i386 disabled
updates-source Fedora $releasever - Upda disabled
updates-testing Fedora $releasever - i386 disabled
updates-testing-debuginfo Fedora $releasever - i386 disabled
updates-testing-source Fedora $releasever - Test disabled
repolist: 0


Help please?! Thanks...

[LongTimeDabbler]

To me it looks like you indeed have /bin/sh present but your packaging system thinks otherwise. Also you say you're on FC14 but your packaging system thinks otherwise. I have no idea of why that is but it's a problem. If I were in this situation and I did not have too much invested in my current system I'd consider doing a clean install - where you know you are starting from a good state. Right now it may be too hard a problem to figure out what went wrong and to fix same. Maybe someone else will come along with some better insights.

[richardpd]

Thanks LongTimeDabbler

I have spent most of this evening reinstalling Fedora14 (+ data backup).
Things seem to be going better now (+ I can access phpmyadmin!).

Sadly I do not know what caused the package problem. I still have lots to learn about yum/Fedora software install/remove packages.
I just hope I do not have to do more reinstalls!

I want Fedora to be a stable linux distro for me so I can get on with general & webprogramming (installing media codecs & a few chess programs + TweetDeck are extras to make the system sweet/good!).

It is good to know I can get good advice to learn to sort out Fedora/Linux issues in this forum.

Best wishes

[LongTimeDabbler]

No you'll probably never figure out what went wrong - just a fact of life. I you stick with Fedora/Linux it will start making more and more sense - it just doesn't happen overnight. Between Google and Forums such as these most problems can eventually get sorted out. Keep a log of what you do - as much as possible - (and store it somewhere where you can always get to it i.e. i the Cloud or something like that). One big lesson to learn is that everything can ultimately be fixed. If the machine won't boot, get a rescue disk and get in there and fix what broke. If all else fails reinstall. Once you realize that ultimately everything is just "software" which you control - you've taken a lot of the mystery out. The other thing is that there is strength in numbers. If you're using a popular distro e.g. Fedora, you're hardware is not too out of date or too exotic and what you're doing with software is not too "out there" - then there ultimately is a way to get things to work - because many others have come before you and blazed the way. So very often just selecting the default option when unsure of what to do is a pretty safe thing to do - chances are the system knows as much as you do and is probably giving you pretty decent advice.

Keep at it - you'll be rewarded in the long run.