Post by nickdc on Mar 9, 2024 20:23:15 GMT
I'm running Bodhi 7 on an old Vaio laptop, using exclusively to capture old mini dv tapes using dvgrab, so large .dv files which are transferred to an external usb drive, then deleted from the laptop, tape by tape (emptying trash too). Bodhi is installed on a 64G partition: /dev/sda3. Windows and Windows recovery are on the other two partitions.
Yesterday the Vaio couldn't get past the Moksha splash screen, ie boot starts normally, goes through to login screen, password accepted, then a brief Moksha splash followed by a black screen and arrow cursor (which moves with the mouse) but nothing further. Continued disk noise and flashing of the hdd light.
This happened before and I ended up having to reinstall Bodhi. I don't want to have to keep doing that every few weeks, so would appreciate help troubleshooting.
Some clues:
1. The start-up screen reports /dev/sda3 as "clean", confirmed by fsck run from a live usb.
2. Going into recovery mode, I notice as the screen scrolls through all the processes, everything is "OK" except for one line which has a red "FAIL". It disappears before I can note it accurately but I think it refers to kernel modules. Could that be the problem?
2. I can login to a command prompt (both from the early option of a normal boot and from the recovery mode) and that has enabled me to run one or two diagnostic commands, including df, which showed that the partition containing Bodhi is almost full: <Size 64G Used 60G Available 375M Use% 100%> This is confirmed by GParted, run from a live USB. Could this be causing the problem?
3. From the command prompt and from a live usb I've checked that there are no files in the home directory - nothing, just empty default folders. So how can the 64G partition be nearly full?
4. Looking for ideas I came across this thread: askubuntu.com/questions/413358/disk-is-full-but-cannot-find-big-files-or-folders where the 8th answer down got me thinking about the USB external drive I've been using to transfer the captured dv files to a desktop computer. Could something be going on here, whereby even though the dv files are being removed from the laptop home folder, another part of the OS believes the contents are still there? Is that possible? I remembered that whenever I dismounted the external USB after moving the files on to it I always get a pop-up warning not to remove it yet as write operations are still ongoing. This disappears very quickly and is never replaced by a notification that it's safe to unplug, but I usually unplug once it goes, without any apparent problem. I put it down to a minor glitch in Bodhi, but perhaps it's significant and indicates some sort of malfunction between the USB drive and the OS. Any thoughts?
5. It's a very similar period of time between reinstalling Bodhi and the boot failure, as it was the first time, from initial installation to identical boot failure. Very similar activity re capture and file transfer to the external drive. Does that suggest this is some sort of cumulative process that reaches a tipping point after so much activity/GB transfer?
I'd be most grateful for any suggestions as to what might be the problem, what from the above can be discounted, what further troubleshooting I might do. Cheers!
