Mailing List Archive: Gentoo system suddenly failed to boot.

Gentoo system suddenly failed to boot.

Feb 15, 2021, 9:53 AM

Post #1 of 15 (1075 views)

Yesterday, my relatively new install of Gentoo failed to boot with the
following repeated messages:

ata5.04: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
ata5.04: hard resetting link
ata5.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 Scontrol 0)

My first thought was that something is wrong with my old IDE (ATA)
drive. (The Gentoo system partition was on /dev/sda5.)

Nevertheless, I was able to boot from a flash drive with a live Gentoo
CD and chroot into the Gentoo system partition of my IDE drive.

So, I formatted a new SATA drive according to instructions given in
Gentoo AMD64 Handbook, rsynced the corresponding IDE system partition
into it by the following command:

rsync -qaHAXS source_dir target_dir

made the necessary changes to the corresponding fstab file, chrooted
into the new system SATA partition, recompiled grub and installed it
on the new disk.

After all that I was able to boot the Gentoo system from the new
partition. However, the booting process went as slow as hell, and at
the end Xorg server failed to start.

My next guess was that something went wrong with the last kernel I
used to boot. So, I tried to boot using the previous kernel.

However, this time the booting failed with almost the same messages as above:

ata5.03: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
ata5.03: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
ata5.03: hard resetting link
ata6.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 SControl 0)

(Now, my new Gentoo system partition is on /dev/sdb2.)

Shall I try to do something to fix it before reinstalling Gentoo anew?

For example, I thought of booting with a live Gentoo flash drive,
chrooting into the new system partition and recompiling @system.
However, if it is not some package that is corrupted, it may be a waste of time.
Or, maybe, @system may be narrowed to just a few packages needed at boot time?
Shall I try to recreate initramfs, what in my case means re-emerging
gentoo-kernel package?
What do you think?

P.S. Nevertheless, I still can successfully boot my very old legacy
system from another partition of my IDE drive.

Re: Gentoo system suddenly failed to boot. [ In reply to ]

jdashiel at panix

Feb 15, 2021, 10:59 AM

Post #2 of 15 (1075 views)

Permalink

Check the date and time when you boot and if it isn't correct, you
probably have a dead battery on your motherboard. I had to replace one a
couple days ago. Fortunately the kind of battery my computer uses is sold
in pharmacies since blood sugar meters also use them.

On Mon, 15 Feb 2021, gevisz wrote:

> Yesterday, my relatively new install of Gentoo failed to boot with the
> following repeated messages:
>
> ata5.04: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> ata5.04: hard resetting link
> ata5.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 Scontrol 0)
>
> My first thought was that something is wrong with my old IDE (ATA)
> drive. (The Gentoo system partition was on /dev/sda5.)
>
> Nevertheless, I was able to boot from a flash drive with a live Gentoo
> CD and chroot into the Gentoo system partition of my IDE drive.
>
> So, I formatted a new SATA drive according to instructions given in
> Gentoo AMD64 Handbook, rsynced the corresponding IDE system partition
> into it by the following command:
>
> rsync -qaHAXS source_dir target_dir
>
> made the necessary changes to the corresponding fstab file, chrooted
> into the new system SATA partition, recompiled grub and installed it
> on the new disk.
>
> After all that I was able to boot the Gentoo system from the new
> partition. However, the booting process went as slow as hell, and at
> the end Xorg server failed to start.
>
> My next guess was that something went wrong with the last kernel I
> used to boot. So, I tried to boot using the previous kernel.
>
> However, this time the booting failed with almost the same messages as above:
>
> ata5.03: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> ata5.03: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> ata5.03: hard resetting link
> ata6.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
>
> (Now, my new Gentoo system partition is on /dev/sdb2.)
>
> Shall I try to do something to fix it before reinstalling Gentoo anew?
>
> For example, I thought of booting with a live Gentoo flash drive,
> chrooting into the new system partition and recompiling @system.
> However, if it is not some package that is corrupted, it may be a waste of time.
> Or, maybe, @system may be narrowed to just a few packages needed at boot time?
> Shall I try to recreate initramfs, what in my case means re-emerging
> gentoo-kernel package?
> What do you think?
>
> P.S. Nevertheless, I still can successfully boot my very old legacy
> system from another partition of my IDE drive.
>
>

Re: Gentoo system suddenly failed to boot. [ In reply to ]

gevisz at gmail

Feb 15, 2021, 12:13 PM

Post #3 of 15 (1075 views)

Permalink

??, 15 ????. 2021 ?. ? 20:59, Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@panix.com>:
>
> Check the date and time when you boot and if it isn't correct, you
> probably have a dead battery on your motherboard. I had to replace one a
> couple days ago. Fortunately the kind of battery my computer uses is sold
> in pharmacies since blood sugar meters also use them.

Legacy system shows incorrect time but I think that it is because of
the dual-boot with Linux and not because of the battery issue.
The date is still correct: Monday, February 15, 2021.

Well, probably my best option to reinstall the system from scratch. :(

> On Mon, 15 Feb 2021, gevisz wrote:
>
> > Yesterday, my relatively new install of Gentoo failed to boot with the
> > following repeated messages:
> >
> > ata5.04: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> > ata5.04: hard resetting link
> > ata5.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 Scontrol 0)
> >
> > My first thought was that something is wrong with my old IDE (ATA)
> > drive. (The Gentoo system partition was on /dev/sda5.)
> >
> > Nevertheless, I was able to boot from a flash drive with a live Gentoo
> > CD and chroot into the Gentoo system partition of my IDE drive.
> >
> > So, I formatted a new SATA drive according to instructions given in
> > Gentoo AMD64 Handbook, rsynced the corresponding IDE system partition
> > into it by the following command:
> >
> > rsync -qaHAXS source_dir target_dir
> >
> > made the necessary changes to the corresponding fstab file, chrooted
> > into the new system SATA partition, recompiled grub and installed it
> > on the new disk.
> >
> > After all that I was able to boot the Gentoo system from the new
> > partition. However, the booting process went as slow as hell, and at
> > the end Xorg server failed to start.
> >
> > My next guess was that something went wrong with the last kernel I
> > used to boot. So, I tried to boot using the previous kernel.
> >
> > However, this time the booting failed with almost the same messages as above:
> >
> > ata5.03: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> > ata5.03: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> > ata5.03: hard resetting link
> > ata6.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> >
> > (Now, my new Gentoo system partition is on /dev/sdb2.)
> >
> > Shall I try to do something to fix it before reinstalling Gentoo anew?
> >
> > For example, I thought of booting with a live Gentoo flash drive,
> > chrooting into the new system partition and recompiling @system.
> > However, if it is not some package that is corrupted, it may be a waste of time.
> > Or, maybe, @system may be narrowed to just a few packages needed at boot time?
> > Shall I try to recreate initramfs, what in my case means re-emerging
> > gentoo-kernel package?
> > What do you think?
> >
> > P.S. Nevertheless, I still can successfully boot my very old legacy
> > system from another partition of my IDE drive.
> >
> >
>

Re: Gentoo system suddenly failed to boot. [ In reply to ]

oli at kernelpanic

Feb 15, 2021, 12:17 PM

Post #4 of 15 (1074 views)

Permalink

ata5.04: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
ata5.04: hard resetting link
ata5.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 Scontrol 0)

and

ata5.04: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
ata5.04: hard resetting link
ata5.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 Scontrol 0)

beside all the install/reinstalls - both errors indicate the drive is
failing OR (my best guess) the cable is bad. Replace the cable with a
new one and try again.

Oli

On 2021-02-15 21:13, gevisz wrote:
> ??, 15 ????. 2021 ?. ? 20:59, Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@panix.com>:
>>
>> Check the date and time when you boot and if it isn't correct, you
>> probably have a dead battery on your motherboard. I had to replace
>> one a
>> couple days ago. Fortunately the kind of battery my computer uses is
>> sold
>> in pharmacies since blood sugar meters also use them.
>
> Legacy system shows incorrect time but I think that it is because of
> the dual-boot with Linux and not because of the battery issue.
> The date is still correct: Monday, February 15, 2021.
>
> Well, probably my best option to reinstall the system from scratch. :(
>
>> On Mon, 15 Feb 2021, gevisz wrote:
>>
>> > Yesterday, my relatively new install of Gentoo failed to boot with the
>> > following repeated messages:
>> >
>> > ata5.04: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
>> > ata5.04: hard resetting link
>> > ata5.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 Scontrol 0)
>> >
>> > My first thought was that something is wrong with my old IDE (ATA)
>> > drive. (The Gentoo system partition was on /dev/sda5.)
>> >
>> > Nevertheless, I was able to boot from a flash drive with a live Gentoo
>> > CD and chroot into the Gentoo system partition of my IDE drive.
>> >
>> > So, I formatted a new SATA drive according to instructions given in
>> > Gentoo AMD64 Handbook, rsynced the corresponding IDE system partition
>> > into it by the following command:
>> >
>> > rsync -qaHAXS source_dir target_dir
>> >
>> > made the necessary changes to the corresponding fstab file, chrooted
>> > into the new system SATA partition, recompiled grub and installed it
>> > on the new disk.
>> >
>> > After all that I was able to boot the Gentoo system from the new
>> > partition. However, the booting process went as slow as hell, and at
>> > the end Xorg server failed to start.
>> >
>> > My next guess was that something went wrong with the last kernel I
>> > used to boot. So, I tried to boot using the previous kernel.
>> >
>> > However, this time the booting failed with almost the same messages as above:
>> >
>> > ata5.03: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
>> > ata5.03: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
>> > ata5.03: hard resetting link
>> > ata6.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
>> >
>> > (Now, my new Gentoo system partition is on /dev/sdb2.)
>> >
>> > Shall I try to do something to fix it before reinstalling Gentoo anew?
>> >
>> > For example, I thought of booting with a live Gentoo flash drive,
>> > chrooting into the new system partition and recompiling @system.
>> > However, if it is not some package that is corrupted, it may be a waste of time.
>> > Or, maybe, @system may be narrowed to just a few packages needed at boot time?
>> > Shall I try to recreate initramfs, what in my case means re-emerging
>> > gentoo-kernel package?
>> > What do you think?
>> >
>> > P.S. Nevertheless, I still can successfully boot my very old legacy
>> > system from another partition of my IDE drive.
>> >
>> >
>>

Re: Gentoo system suddenly failed to boot. [ In reply to ]

gevisz at gmail

Feb 15, 2021, 12:30 PM

Post #5 of 15 (1074 views)

Permalink

??, 15 ????. 2021 ?. ? 22:18, Oli Schmidt <oli@kernelpanic.ch>:
>
> ata5.04: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> ata5.04: hard resetting link
> ata5.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 Scontrol 0)
>
> and
>
> ata5.04: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> ata5.04: hard resetting link
> ata5.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 Scontrol 0)
>
>
> beside all the install/reinstalls - both errors indicate the drive is
> failing OR (my best guess) the cable is bad. Replace the cable with a
> new one and try again.

Thank you for the tips.

However, the same cable allows me to boot Gentoo from minimal CD and
legacy system from an old IDE drive.

As to the new SATA drive, I formatted it anew and created ext4 file system with
mkfs.ext4 --cc /dev/sdb2
which 4 times tested the partition writing and reading from it.

Moreover, after chrooting into the partition, I do all update and
emerge tasks, and it works fine.

> On 2021-02-15 21:13, gevisz wrote:
> > ??, 15 ????. 2021 ?. ? 20:59, Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@panix.com>:
> >>
> >> Check the date and time when you boot and if it isn't correct, you
> >> probably have a dead battery on your motherboard. I had to replace
> >> one a
> >> couple days ago. Fortunately the kind of battery my computer uses is
> >> sold
> >> in pharmacies since blood sugar meters also use them.
> >
> > Legacy system shows incorrect time but I think that it is because of
> > the dual-boot with Linux and not because of the battery issue.
> > The date is still correct: Monday, February 15, 2021.
> >
> > Well, probably my best option to reinstall the system from scratch. :(
> >
> >> On Mon, 15 Feb 2021, gevisz wrote:
> >>
> >> > Yesterday, my relatively new install of Gentoo failed to boot with the
> >> > following repeated messages:
> >> >
> >> > ata5.04: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> >> > ata5.04: hard resetting link
> >> > ata5.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 Scontrol 0)
> >> >
> >> > My first thought was that something is wrong with my old IDE (ATA)
> >> > drive. (The Gentoo system partition was on /dev/sda5.)
> >> >
> >> > Nevertheless, I was able to boot from a flash drive with a live Gentoo
> >> > CD and chroot into the Gentoo system partition of my IDE drive.
> >> >
> >> > So, I formatted a new SATA drive according to instructions given in
> >> > Gentoo AMD64 Handbook, rsynced the corresponding IDE system partition
> >> > into it by the following command:
> >> >
> >> > rsync -qaHAXS source_dir target_dir
> >> >
> >> > made the necessary changes to the corresponding fstab file, chrooted
> >> > into the new system SATA partition, recompiled grub and installed it
> >> > on the new disk.
> >> >
> >> > After all that I was able to boot the Gentoo system from the new
> >> > partition. However, the booting process went as slow as hell, and at
> >> > the end Xorg server failed to start.
> >> >
> >> > My next guess was that something went wrong with the last kernel I
> >> > used to boot. So, I tried to boot using the previous kernel.
> >> >
> >> > However, this time the booting failed with almost the same messages as above:
> >> >
> >> > ata5.03: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> >> > ata5.03: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> >> > ata5.03: hard resetting link
> >> > ata6.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> >> >
> >> > (Now, my new Gentoo system partition is on /dev/sdb2.)
> >> >
> >> > Shall I try to do something to fix it before reinstalling Gentoo anew?
> >> >
> >> > For example, I thought of booting with a live Gentoo flash drive,
> >> > chrooting into the new system partition and recompiling @system.
> >> > However, if it is not some package that is corrupted, it may be a waste of time.
> >> > Or, maybe, @system may be narrowed to just a few packages needed at boot time?
> >> > Shall I try to recreate initramfs, what in my case means re-emerging
> >> > gentoo-kernel package?
> >> > What do you think?
> >> >
> >> > P.S. Nevertheless, I still can successfully boot my very old legacy
> >> > system from another partition of my IDE drive.
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
>

Re: Gentoo system suddenly failed to boot. [ In reply to ]

edwardmgibson01 at gmail

Feb 16, 2021, 8:15 PM

Post #6 of 15 (1070 views)

Permalink

On 2/15/21 9:53 AM, gevisz wrote:
> Yesterday, my relatively new install of Gentoo failed to boot with the
> following repeated messages:
>
> ata5.04: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> ata5.04: hard resetting link
> ata5.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 Scontrol 0)
>
> My first thought was that something is wrong with my old IDE (ATA)
> drive. (The Gentoo system partition was on /dev/sda5.)

what motherboard model is this? probably BIOS disk controller setting
needs to be set to either SATA AHCI or

something else?

Re: Gentoo system suddenly failed to boot. [ In reply to ]

gevisz at gmail

Feb 17, 2021, 3:50 AM

Post #7 of 15 (1070 views)

Permalink

??, 17 ????. 2021 ?. ? 04:54, Edward <edwardmgibson01@gmail.com>:
>
> On 2/15/21 9:53 AM, gevisz wrote:
> > Yesterday, my relatively new install of Gentoo failed to boot with the
> > following repeated messages:
> >
> > ata5.04: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> > ata5.04: hard resetting link
> > ata5.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 Scontrol 0)
> >
> > My first thought was that something is wrong with my old IDE (ATA)
> > drive. (The Gentoo system partition was on /dev/sda5.)
>
> What motherboard model is this?

It is a good question. My motherboard is Gigabyte Ultra Durable GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
and I had problems with it from the very beginning in the sense that it is
quite often doesn't see my SATA disks on the first boot (though, on the second
reboot it usually finds them). It is also quite often that it stops booting
the legacy operating system and automatically reboots before showing
a login screen.

I bought it somewhere in 2006 together with a Gigabyte S-series GA-MA69GM-S2H
motherboard, which I have been intensively using every day since then and never
had any problem.

In contrast, the Ultra Durable one has been used very rarely and for
quite short periods of time.
So, I do not expect it to wear off by now.

> Probably BIOS disk controller setting needs to be set to either SATA AHCI or something else?

Well, I will look into but the problem is that it worked previously
with the same BIOS settings.

Below is an account of what I have done so far.

First of all, I copied the system partition from my ATA to the SATA
drive, updated the system,
recompiled @system, openrc and gentoo-kernel, which unfortunately had
no effect on the booting problem.

At this stage, I started to seriously consider the suggestions above
that it may be a hardware problem.

So, I returned to the initial ATA system partition, updated the system
there, switched off swap (in fstab),
reinstalled grub on this disk and tried to boot from it. To my great
surprise it failed to boot again
complaining about links to two my SATA drives that it was not supposed
to use at all!

Of course, in this case, I have not reinstalled gentoo-kernel. So, may
be, the links to my SATA drives
are in the initramfs that still contains links to one of the other
SATA drive. (Its swap was there.)

However, I used another SATA drive to try the system from there.

And the legacy operating system has absolutely no problem starting
from the ATA drive now.

Re: Gentoo system suddenly failed to boot. [ In reply to ]

gevisz at gmail

Feb 17, 2021, 3:58 AM

Post #8 of 15 (1070 views)

Permalink

??, 17 ????. 2021 ?. ? 13:50, gevisz <gevisz@gmail.com>:
>
> ??, 17 ????. 2021 ?. ? 04:54, Edward <edwardmgibson01@gmail.com>:
> >
> > On 2/15/21 9:53 AM, gevisz wrote:
> > > Yesterday, my relatively new install of Gentoo failed to boot with the
> > > following repeated messages:
> > >
> > > ata5.04: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> > > ata5.04: hard resetting link
> > > ata5.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 Scontrol 0)
> > >
> > > My first thought was that something is wrong with my old IDE (ATA)
> > > drive. (The Gentoo system partition was on /dev/sda5.)
> >
> > What motherboard model is this?
>
> It is a good question. My motherboard is Gigabyte Ultra Durable GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
> and I had problems with it from the very beginning in the sense that it is
> quite often doesn't see my SATA disks on the first boot (though, on the second
> reboot it usually finds them). It is also quite often that it stops booting
> the legacy operating system and automatically reboots before showing
> a login screen.
>
> I bought it somewhere in 2006 together with a Gigabyte S-series GA-MA69GM-S2H
> motherboard, which I have been intensively using every day since then and never
> had any problem.
>
> In contrast, the Ultra Durable one has been used very rarely and for
> quite short periods of time.
> So, I do not expect it to wear off by now.
>
> > Probably BIOS disk controller setting needs to be set to either SATA AHCI or something else?
>
> Well, I will look into but the problem is that it worked previously
> with the same BIOS settings.
>
> Below is an account of what I have done so far.
>
> First of all, I copied the system partition from my ATA to the SATA
> drive, updated the system,
> recompiled @system, openrc and gentoo-kernel, which unfortunately had
> no effect on the booting problem.
>
> At this stage, I started to seriously consider the suggestions above
> that it may be a hardware problem.
>
> So, I returned to the initial ATA system partition, updated the system
> there, switched off swap (in fstab),
> reinstalled grub on this disk and tried to boot from it. To my great
> surprise it failed to boot again
> complaining about links to two my SATA drives that it was not supposed
> to use at all!

Correction:
Of course, in this case, I have not reinstalled gentoo-kernel.
So, it may be that the links to my SATA drives are still in
the initramfs that was created before. (The swap was one of my
SATA drives.)

However, I used another SATA drive to try the system from there
(with swap on it) with the same failure to boot.

> And the legacy operating system has absolutely no problem starting
> from the ATA drive now.

P.S. Currently, I am going to remove my SATA disks from the system and
try to reboot it once again. If it will not help, I am going to recompile
gentoo-kernel on the only remaining ATA disk. (And, if that will not help,
I will look for the hammer. :)

Re: Gentoo system suddenly failed to boot. [ In reply to ]

antlists at youngman

Feb 17, 2021, 10:48 AM

Post #9 of 15 (1070 views)

Permalink

On 17/02/2021 11:50, gevisz wrote:
> It is a good question. My motherboard is Gigabyte Ultra Durable GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
> and I had problems with it from the very beginning in the sense that it is
> quite often doesn't see my SATA disks on the first boot (though, on the second
> reboot it usually finds them). It is also quite often that it stops booting
> the legacy operating system and automatically reboots before showing
> a login screen.

Sounds a bit like the mobo on my current main system - a GA-785GMT-UD2H.
Not sure how old it is - it has an Athlon X-III and DDR3 ram, but it
keeps on forgetting its settings at boot (resetting to default), and I
gave up updating gentoo, because when I retired my Athlon Thunderbird
system, I could no longer get the updates to run without crashing. It's
crazy - I used to cross-compile on the Thunderbird, just to get it to
build successfully!!!

I've now got a new system to replace it, but that's still a project...

Cheers,
Wol

Re: Gentoo system suddenly failed to boot. [ In reply to ]

gevisz at gmail

Feb 17, 2021, 1:45 PM

Post #10 of 15 (1070 views)

Permalink

??, 17 ????. 2021 ?. ? 13:58, gevisz <gevisz@gmail.com>:
>
> ??, 17 ????. 2021 ?. ? 13:50, gevisz <gevisz@gmail.com>:
> >
> > ??, 17 ????. 2021 ?. ? 04:54, Edward <edwardmgibson01@gmail.com>:
> > >
> > > On 2/15/21 9:53 AM, gevisz wrote:
> > > > Yesterday, my relatively new install of Gentoo failed to boot with the
> > > > following repeated messages:
> > > >
> > > > ata5.04: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
> > > > ata5.04: hard resetting link
> > > > ata5.04: failed to resume link (SStatus 0 Scontrol 0)
> > > >
> > > > My first thought was that something is wrong with my old IDE (ATA)
> > > > drive. (The Gentoo system partition was on /dev/sda5.)
> > >
> > > What motherboard model is this?
> >
> > It is a good question. My motherboard is Gigabyte Ultra Durable GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
> > and I had problems with it from the very beginning in the sense that it is
> > quite often doesn't see my SATA disks on the first boot (though, on the second
> > reboot it usually finds them). It is also quite often that it stops booting
> > the legacy operating system and automatically reboots before showing
> > a login screen.
> >
> > I bought it somewhere in 2006 together with a Gigabyte S-series GA-MA69GM-S2H
> > motherboard, which I have been intensively using every day since then and never
> > had any problem.
> >
> > In contrast, the Ultra Durable one has been used very rarely and for
> > quite short periods of time.
> > So, I do not expect it to wear off by now.
> >
> > > Probably BIOS disk controller setting needs to be set to either SATA AHCI or something else?
> >
> > Well, I will look into but the problem is that it worked previously
> > with the same BIOS settings.
> >
> > Below is an account of what I have done so far.
> >
> > First of all, I copied the system partition from my ATA to the SATA
> > drive, updated the system,
> > recompiled @system, openrc and gentoo-kernel, which unfortunately had
> > no effect on the booting problem.
> >
> > At this stage, I started to seriously consider the suggestions above
> > that it may be a hardware problem.
> >
> > So, I returned to the initial ATA system partition, updated the system
> > there, switched off swap (in fstab),
> > reinstalled grub on this disk and tried to boot from it. To my great
> > surprise it failed to boot again
> > complaining about links to two my SATA drives that it was not supposed
> > to use at all!
>
> Correction:
> Of course, in this case, I have not reinstalled gentoo-kernel.
> So, it may be that the links to my SATA drives are still in
> the initramfs that was created before. (The swap was one of my
> SATA drives.)
>
> However, I used another SATA drive to try the system from there
> (with swap on it) with the same failure to boot.
>
> > And the legacy operating system has absolutely no problem starting
> > from the ATA drive now.
>
> P.S. Currently, I am going to remove my SATA disks from the system and
> try to reboot it once again. If it will not help, I am going to recompile
> gentoo-kernel on the only remaining ATA disk. (And, if that will not help,
> I will look for the hammer. :)

So, I have removed both my SATA disks and tried to reboot:
the system stalled without any error message at all.

After that I installed gentookernel and re-created initramfs image
(the previous one was created by the gentoo-kernel package before
the removal of the SATA disks).

After that, my Gentoo system successfully rebooted from the only
(ATA) disk that remained.

So, the problem is partially solved.

However, I still do not understand the exact reason for it to appear.

Most probably, both my SATA disks have connection problems as
Oli Schmidt suggested from the very beginning, and because they
both have it, it points to the motherboard that already had quite
a bad track record.

Unfortunately, I cannot diagnose it further, but later will try
to experiment with attaching my SATA drives again.

Also, I am going to test voltage outputs of my Enermax power
supply unit when I will have such a possibility. It is quite old but
was not used intensively. The other one, Thermaltake, is even older,
was intensively used everyday, and still had no problems. (Both
were bought with a big margin with respect to my computer's
power demand).

Thanks to all who replied to this thread.

Re: Gentoo system suddenly failed to boot. [ In reply to ]

confabulate at kintzios

Feb 17, 2021, 3:09 PM

Post #11 of 15 (1070 views)

Permalink

On Wednesday, 17 February 2021 21:45:35 GMT gevisz wrote:

> Most probably, both my SATA disks have connection problems as
> Oli Schmidt suggested from the very beginning, and because they
> both have it, it points to the motherboard that already had quite
> a bad track record.
>
> Unfortunately, I cannot diagnose it further, but later will try
> to experiment with attaching my SATA drives again.

It may be worth mentioning I've experience similar problems with an old MoBo,
different to yours. Eventually I narrowed it down to a loose SATA connector
on the MoBo. It would either fail completely to boot, or it would boot but
the disk would make a clicking noise. I initially suspected a dying disk, but
after I reseated the cable on the MoBo the problem went away, for a while,
until I reseated it once more. :-)

The ATA disk would boot normally (IDE controller).

Anyway, just make sure you have enable AHCI instead of IDE type controller on
your BIOS menu for the SATA disk and have configured the Gentoo kernel
appropriately to include AHCI.

Re: Gentoo system suddenly failed to boot. [ In reply to ]

gevisz at gmail

Feb 18, 2021, 2:01 PM

Post #12 of 15 (1070 views)

Permalink

??, 18 ????. 2021 ?. ? 01:10, Michael <confabulate@kintzios.com>:
>
> On Wednesday, 17 February 2021 21:45:35 GMT gevisz wrote:
>
> > Most probably, both my SATA disks have connection problems as
> > Oli Schmidt suggested from the very beginning, and because they
> > both have it, it points to the motherboard that already had quite
> > a bad track record.
> >
> > Unfortunately, I cannot diagnose it further, but later will try
> > to experiment with attaching my SATA drives again.
>
> It may be worth mentioning I've experienced similar problems with an old MoBo,
> different to yours. Eventually I narrowed it down to a loose SATA connector
> on the MoBo. It would either fail completely to boot, or it would boot but
> the disk would make a clicking noise. I initially suspected a dying disk, but
> after I reseated the cable on the MoBo the problem went away, for a while,
> until I reseated it once more. :-)
>
> The ATA disk would boot normally (IDE controller).
>
> Anyway, just make sure you have enable AHCI instead of IDE type controller on
> your BIOS menu for the SATA disk and have configured the Gentoo kernel
> appropriately to include AHCI.

I will look into this and report if I will find something. Thank you.

Re: Gentoo system suddenly failed to boot. [ In reply to ]

edwardmgibson01 at gmail

Feb 20, 2021, 12:03 AM

Post #13 of 15 (1070 views)

Permalink

On 2/17/2021 3:50 AM, gevisz wrote:
> I had problems with it from the very beginning in the sense that it is
> quite often doesn't see my SATA disks on the first boot (though, on the second
> reboot it usually finds them). It is also quite often that it stops booting
> the legacy operating system and automatically reboots before showing
> a login screen.
>
> I bought it somewhere in 2006 together with a Gigabyte S-series GA-MA69GM-S2H
> motherboard, which I have been intensively using every day since then and never
> had any problem.

If was giving problems from the start, it probably just needs the
BIOS updated.
F4 BIOS may address this issue:

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-MA69GM-S2H-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios

Re: Gentoo system suddenly failed to boot. [ In reply to ]

edwardmgibson01 at gmail

Feb 20, 2021, 2:15 AM

Post #14 of 15 (1070 views)

Permalink

On 2/20/2021 12:03 AM, Edward wrote:
>
>
> On 2/17/2021 3:50 AM, gevisz wrote:
>> I had problems with it from the very beginning in the sense that it is
>> quite often doesn't see my SATA disks on the first boot (though, on
>> the second
>> reboot it usually finds them). It is also quite often that it stops
>> booting
>> the legacy operating system and automatically reboots before showing
>> a login screen.
>>
>> I bought it somewhere in 2006 together with a Gigabyte S-series
>> GA-MA69GM-S2H
>> motherboard, which I have been intensively using every day since then
>> and never
>> had any problem.
>
> If was giving problems from the start, it probably just needs the
> BIOS updated.
> F4 BIOS may address this issue:
>
> https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-MA69GM-S2H-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios
>
just realized you're having issues with the GA-MA790FXT and not
with the GA-MA69GM-S2H ignore the BIOS update suggestion. it can be
hardware like defected capacitors,etc on the GA-MA790FXT

Re: Gentoo system suddenly failed to boot. [ In reply to ]

mad.scientist.at.large at tutanota

Feb 20, 2021, 6:27 AM

Post #15 of 15 (1070 views)

Permalink

It can also be a failing power supply, had this issue myself, first 1 of 3 drives was having trouble during boot, then the boot drive started having problems. New power supply fixed it right up. Nearly anything can cause boot problems depending on the motherboard etc. If it's the power supply it's likely aging caps, just like with the motherboard.

I've replaced caps on other motherboards, It's worth getting those with a high ripple current rating and rated for 16V (they actually have less resistance and better ripple tolerance), the particular caps I used were $1 Ea. from digikey. You can spot failing electrolytic caps, they are the ones where you can see the top of the aluminum can. The marking is actually printed on heat-shrink tubing. When they start to fail they get warm enough to shrink the label more and pull it off the end. Of course any that are bulging (usually on the end) or have the top opened up are also failed. Electrolytic capacitors are the least reliable component type, though they have gotten much better over time they are still the goto suspect when nearly anything electronic fails, Especially when it gets worse over time and there's been no abuse. Heat will make them fail much sooner (I.e. after a fan failure).

--"Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege." Tommy Douglas

Feb 20, 2021, 01:03 by edwardmgibson01@gmail.com:

>
>
> On 2/17/2021 3:50 AM, gevisz wrote:
>
>> I had problems with it from the very beginning in the sense that it is
>> quite often doesn't see my SATA disks on the first boot (though, on the second
>> reboot it usually finds them). It is also quite often that it stops booting
>> the legacy operating system and automatically reboots before showing
>> a login screen.
>>
>> I bought it somewhere in 2006 together with a Gigabyte S-series GA-MA69GM-S2H
>> motherboard, which I have been intensively using every day since then and never
>> had any problem.
>>
>
> If was giving problems from the start, it probably just needs the BIOS updated.
> F4 BIOS may address this issue:
>
> https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-MA69GM-S2H-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios
>

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