Vista problem or 11.2 upgrade problem?

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1

I’ve scanned the forums trying to find out if anyone else has experienced this, and have come up with nothing. I have a Toshiba laptop which came preloaded with Windows Vista, I added Opensuse 11.1 last summer. I’ve had no problems at all with either until now.

Chain of events during the previous two days:

Tuesday morning–Vista alerted me that there were ‘updates available, restart computer’. First update took nearly an hour, then message: ‘Updates were not successful; Windows is reverting back to your original settings’. Reverting took nearly another hour. Then it went into another updating process that took only about ten minutes.

A few minutes later, I rebooted into opensuse 11.1. I upgraded to 11.2 using the direct link download method. It appeared to be successful, no error messages. However, as I was changing the desktop background appearance my computer shut down without warning… instantaneously. From then on, whether I tried to restart it in Linux or Windows it would soon shut down, no error message, sometimes before completing the reboot. That evening, I rebooted into Windows, not Linux. I was able to play two DVDs without the system shutting down as before.

Wednesday morning–Tried reinstalling 11.1 from the original liveCD that I used to install it last June. Installation seemed successful, but soon automatic shutdowns began again. Again, shutdowns continued even if I went into Windows. No error or warning messages. Last time, system shut down in the middle of trying a fresh reinstall from 11.1 liveCD.

Later that evening, tried going into opensuse, shut down after about 3 minutes. Windows worked fine from hard drive and d:/ as long as I put a DVD in immediately after logging in, which I remembered that I had done the night before. After the DVD, I was able to play preloaded games and music that I had burned into my library. I kept it on for about six hours, but Windows did not shut down for the rest of the night.

Was problem caused by the 11.2 upgrade (which looked successful) or the strange update, un-update, re-update thing that Windows did shortly before I rebooted into Linux for the upgrade?? Norton detects no virus after scan in Windows. Problem still seems to be in opensuse. I’m new to Linux, but this is the first problem that I’ve encountered. What to do???:’(

2

This thread was originally posted in the wrong subforum area. Hence I have moved the thread in the hope that the user gets better support in a more appropriate area.

3

Sounds like Vista broke from the failed update. One hour is a long time for an update, even by Vista standards. As the rollback took just as long, it was probably as unsuccessfull. I’d say your Vista is broken, and the only way to fix it is probably a clean re-install (i.e. not an upgrade install).
Problems like that are not uncommon for Vista, it’s hated that much for good reason.

Rather than doing a reinstall of 11.1, it would be better to do a fresh install of 11.2. If you re-install Vista, do it before installing 11.2, because otherwise it will kill the grub bootloader.

4

Possible that the RAM is compromised. Try this test: boot off the 11.1 DVD and select to “test memory”.

Just a thought from the left field.

5

I did as you suggested. The computer shut down during the memory test. Twice. Should I panic now? :frowning:

I am going to try the 11.2 installation after parted magic.

6

Sounds like a hardware problem. My dad had a problem VERY similar to this and, as it turns out, his machine was overheating. Try elevating it and see what happens.

7

CocoChanel wrote:
> I did as you suggested. The computer shut down during the memory test.
> Twice. Should I panic now? :frowning:

it shouldn’t shutdown…but, don’t panic yet…could be a heat problem…

but do NOT try to install…it is a waste of time…if you can’t run
memtest you HAVE a hardware problem of some time…openSUSE is
magic, but it won’t run on broken hardware…

when was the last time you cleaned the cat hair and chicken bones out
of the CPU cooler thingy??? (GO to the Toshiba site and SEARCH for the
technical info on how to clean the cooling pathways…

how old is your machine? have you ever dropped it even one foot?

–
palladium

8

As 4436time suggested, elevate it. Make sure the natural airflow can get to underneath too. Also, carefully check to see if the internal cooling fan is running. As palladium suggested, clean the fluff out, but use a soft brush and be very careful of static.

When you have done all that, direct the airstream from an external electric fan onto the keyboard so the air can diffuse through to the internals. Run the memory test again with the external fan running. See what happens.

9

You guys know that if the update is a service pack, you may have to restore the windows boot record - then run win update again - the reinstall grub.

You can actually find a error log somewhere (can’t recall now) which for me, I couldn’t open in windows, I had to use suse kwrite. It’s a massive log file and pretty meaningless like most MS stuff. But in my case I could see the issue. So that’s what I did as mentioned above.

10

Thanks for tip on overheating. That wasn’t it though. Long story short: I managed to delete Windows by overwriting entire HDD with original 11.1 liveCD. Now things are fine, no shutdown for almost 3 hrs. Except…I can’t boot from 11.2 liveCD to do the upgrade. Select “CD/DVD” from boot menu, goes straight to options of 11.1 or 11.1 (failsafe). Tried burning new CD. Is there something that I need to install first now that Windows is no longer there.

Almost there…I know it.

11

CocoChanel wrote:
> I can’t boot from 11.2 liveCD to do the upgrade. Select
> “CD/DVD” from boot menu, goes straight to options of 11.1 or 11.1
> (failsafe).

sounds a lot like you have a corrupted install disk which won’t boot…

and after your BIOS tries and fails to boot “CD/DVD” from boot menu as
you selected it reverts to trying the hard disk (where it finds your
11.1 install)…

  1. did you check the md5sum of the downloaded iso?
  2. burn the disk as slow as you can?
  3. use good media?
  4. do this http://tinyurl.com/yajm2aq before install attempt?

only other possibility i can think of is your BIOS has somehow
determined when you click “CD/DVD” it is really supposed to ignore
that and instead go to the hard drive’s boot sector…let me ask:
when you click “CD/DVD” does the CD spin up and its LED blink showing
it is reading (or trying to) the CD…or does it immediately go to
the LED for the hard drive??

you might check your BIOS setting…

ha! i just thought of another possibility…you are not thinking you
put in a 11.2 CD and it is actually a 11.1, are you? (you do not have
to admit that here…you just say it was Gremlins!)

–
palladium

12

Hardware flaw is maybe in the optical drive. Test to see whether it’s a problem with the optical drive or with the SuSE CD by trying to boot off of the windows installation disk:

  • If the windows installation disk doesn’t boot, then it’s a problem with the optical drive hardware
  • If the windows installation disk does boot, then it’s a problem with the SuSE CD
13

swerdna wrote:
> Hardware flaw is maybe in the optical drive.

excellent points!

–
palladium

14

I know this story sounds weird, but I’ve met a similar problem on a Vista/openSUSE dual boot lately: The owner of the machine decided and insisted, that he wanted to make sure that everything had been disconnected from any power resource, so we completely disassembled the machine, reassembled it, and guess what? Vista errors stopped, after repairing GRUB openSUSE ran as before. Even printing from Vista, which stopped working last spring, was back to normal (, but stopped again after a few days). Printing was his main reason to switch to openSUSE, appointment to completely remove Vista is for next thursday.

15

Knurpht wrote:
> and guess what? Vista errors stopped

AMAZING…

> appointment to completely remove Vista is for next thursday.

good for you, and him…another convert…pass the collection plate.
(if you can understand that english:-)

–
palladium

16

Thought I should mention something first, before starting on the above advice. I Tried to play dvd in Totem, after downloading the Gstreamer plugins. Got the following message:

“Unable to mount Audio Disc.
Cannot find drive /dev/sr0”

Another that was something like,

‘Although you have the correct plugins, still unable to play CD’

Could it be that this is the reason that I can’t boot from the CD/DVD suddenly? The gremlins that ride my shoulders did something so that my laptop is not recognizing the CD drive, period?

While I await a response, I shall burn a new disc following Palladium’s steps in case install disc is corrupted. To answer the other questions: When I click CD/DVD in BIOS it goes straight to the LED for the hard drive…no, I wasn’t mistaking 11.1 cd for the 11.2 cd…and I never had a windows installation disk, because my Toshiba came preloaded with Vista and a lot of other bells and wistles that I never used. Therefore, cannot try booting off windows disk.

17

My money’s on the optical disk being faulty. Think of a test for that, any logical test at all, eg booting off of any other bootable CD that you didn’t burn yourself since this problem arose and that boots on another computer.