[olug] Trying to get to the bottom of a laptop malfunction

[Trent Melcher]

I would get a copy of System Rescue CD burned to a cd and see if it will
load,  there are some good diag tools on the CD that may point you in the
right direction.  Here is the website for more info
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

Trent

-----Original Message-----
From: olug-bounces at olug.org [mailto:olug-bounces at olug.org] On Behalf Of
Thomas D. Williamson
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 9:51 PM
To: olug at olug.org
Subject: [olug] Trying to get to the bottom of a laptop malfunction

I am using openSuSE 11.4 64 on a laptop. Friday the pointer did not close
windows, and when I went to the start panel the icons for programs lost
their association and had a generic folder. When I tired to shut down there
was no action, and there was no effective action through mouse clicks at
all. I did a hard shut down. When it rebooted, it went through grub and
started normally, only the keyring password was not requested and the
network card was not initiated. After a few minutes of normal operation, the
same freezing and lack of mouse clicks doing anything happened. I tried to
do some things through the BIOS diagnostics, but these did not seem to tell
me anything.

I have tried to start openSuSE in failsafe mode, but it has not been able to
start, it is running through something and lists these lines for the last
three hours:
/etc/initscript: line137: /sbin/mingetty: [the next part is either] success
[or] inpuit/ouput error Another line that appears is:
INIT: id "[the numbers that appears are 1through 6]" respawning too fast
disabled for 5 minutes

I suspect there is a hardware failure, but  I am not sure what it is.  
When I have tried to do a repair system from my 11.4 install disk, after
loading up to start, I get a request to "insert disk 1in cd drive." As there
is only one disk, i tell it okay, but it does not find it. When I select the
other option for that, I get to the general installation screen, and am
unable to continue with the repair or to attempt a reinstallation.

Any ideas on what is going on and what may be failing would be appreciated.

Thanks

Tom Williamson

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