Sigh. I opened my desktop machine (Ubuntu) to do two things. First, to try to plug my Laptop drive in so I could dd it to an iso, Second, to pull the memory sticks to see which size they are.
One set of drive cables in the desktop machine has the filled-in hole in the plug, which I assume is to insure that it is plugged into the drive the right way. My 2-1/2" adapter does not have a pin missing. The other set of cables is compatible, so I disconnected one of the secondary drives I have on the machine and plugged in the drive from my laptop. The machine would not boot. At this point I don't recall just where it failed. But I was able to get into the BIOS and see that it didn't see the laptop drive as installed. I returned the cables to their normal drive and then took out the memory. I pulled one of the sticks and found that I have PC2700 DDR333. So the next time I get down to Free Geek when the thrift store is open I can get the right speed. Now for the problem. When I turned the machine back on the bios only got as far as telling me it was going to check the NVRAM, but it never started the count-up. I tried pulling one memory stick, then the other, but that's all the farther it got. Now it doesn't even go that far. All I get is a series of beeps and a blank screen. I vaguely recall something like this in the past, and IIRC it involved the machine needing to warm up a bit. So, while I've been typing this e-mail I left the machine powered on. Just to confirm the conditions I mentioned above I shut it off and powered it back on. Now I can get to the bios. I can look at the four connected drives. and now it boots, but I have the Ubuntu message: Errors were found while checking the disk drive for / F to attempt to fix the errors, I to ignore, S to skip mounting of M for manual Any advice other than to power down and bring the box to the clinic tomorrow? With the rest of the experiences I've been having this week I'm quite hesitant to let the machine try fixing itself without knowing more about what's going on. -- Regards, Dick Steffens _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
