I'm about to nuke my hard drive(s)!

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lake_wrangler
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I'm about to nuke my hard drive(s)!

Post by lake_wrangler »

That's right! It has come down to this...
(Have a seat, it's going to be a long one...)

Late last week, I ran into a problem with my Ubuntu Studio 18.04 installation, where on booting up, it would run into an error where a USB device would not enumerate, or something to that effect, and the error kept just repeating itself ad nauseum. I just couldn't get past that.

One thing that really bugged me was that since I was using the Brave browser, whose sync function for synchronizing bookmarks and other settings between different devices was not working too well (or, at least, maybe I didn't use it right, when I did), I had given up using said sync function. This means that I had no backup of my bookmarks anywhere, nor did I have a backup of the data from one extension I used, umm.., extensively, namely, Tabs Outliner, which manages browser tabs and keeps them in an outline form, and allows you to close tabs while keeping tabs on them (no pun intended... I think...), so as to allow you to reopen the tabs later. The reason for that is that when using the extension in the Chrome browser, the fact you are signed in allows you to save your outline directly to your Google drive. But since Brave is based on Chromium, but does not sign in to Google services, the extension does not save to your google drive. (I only this week figured out a way to get around that limitation and crudely backup the outline... but that was too late for my 18.04 installation.)

So I decided to install Ubuntu Studio 20.04. Remembering a previous thread here, I installed it concurrently to 18.04, on a separate partition (instead of trying to upgrade my 18.04 installation), so as to not lose anything (settings ans such) from my 18.04 installation, and perhaps be able to revive it later.

At first, I was encouraged that while I did get the same error message about the USB device not enumerating, it didn't repeat the error message in a loop, but kept going with the boot process after displaying the error. My enthusiasm was short-lived, however...

As it turned out, after booting into Ubuntu Studio 20.04 (which is essentially Xubuntu with multimedia creation software pre-installed and configured to work well together), I could only run it for a few minutes before it would freeze! The mouse would move, but no clicks or keyboard key presses would register!

While trying to figure out a solution (using my Win10 tablet - I thoroughly dislike Win10, and still plan to eventually dual-boot the machine, but I haven't had the time yet.), the Windows 7 partition started bugging out on my main machine, as well! (In my dual boot setup on my main machine, I keep Windows 7 and my various Linux partitions on separate hard drives) As it is, when trying to boot into Windows 7, it kept going into file system check (chkdsk), but once it was completed, would not finish booting into Windows.

GAH!!!

Eventually, I did manage to find out that the problem with Ubuntu Studio 20.04 freezing was due to the Xfce screensaver. Removing said scrensaver, and replacing it with an independent screensaver (in this case, xscreensaver, which is not the same as xfce-screensaver) solved the freezing problem. Having done that, I installed the NVIDIA drivers for my card, and copied over the xorg.conf file from my 18.04 installation, giving me access to all three monitors, in the proper configuration.

Yay! Progress!

Don't worry, it only gets worse from here... :roll:

At one point, and I forget what I did which led to that, my Ubuntu Studio 20.04 installation bugged out (and this, before I even had a chance to try to fix the problem with the 18.04 ), giving me an error that something was trying to write outside of hard drive (hd0)... and not going any further after that.

I tried installing a new Linux distro in the vacant partition I still had on the PC, in order to try to fix things from the inside, so to speak, at a faster rate of operation than if I was running a live-CD distro from a USB key. I tried running Sparky Linux, which seemed interesting to me, as it was based on Debian, but had options to install much of the multimedia creation software I am used to seeing on my system all at once. This would allow me to continue with the multimedia creation software, while moving away from the Ubuntu architecture (from what I've read, I'm not fond of Snaps or Flatpacks, and Ubuntu seems to be moving headlong into that direction...). But I soon ran into problems: this distro did not have proper drivers for my old NVIDIA Geforce GT 610 graphics card (hint: the card is so old, that the current NVIDIA drivers don't support it anymore...) I did try to install an older version of the drivers (it did have legacy drivers options, for older cards), but it didn't work properly. Long story short (too late, I know...), it crapped out the installation. That Linux distro installation was no longer usable...

Forgetting the newly installed and newly borked distro, I went back to trying to fix the Ubuntu Studio 20.04 booting problem. So I tried a program called "Boot-Repair", but it didn't work at first as it wanted to have booted into UEFI mode in order to work. I found a way to set up a different USB key to boot into UEFI mode and try again. But for some reason, it didn't help.

I then tried to install another distro, replacing Sparky Linux on that one partition. For kicks, I tried installing Gecko Linux (a distro based on OpenSUSE linux, which takes care of much of the small details needed to make OpenSUSE more user-friendly, such as installing audio codecs and so on). Looking at things there, I did see some things that were different from Debian/Ubuntu based distros, such as how to change the location of the Home folder (for instance, there is no usermod command in OpenSUSE, apparently...) It didn't help that I purposely installed the Gnome DE version of the distro, as a learning experience, which made it harder for me to find things, of course... I did eventually find a place, from within YAST, where I could change the location of a user's Home folder. Unfortunately, even though I knew better, I did not create a new user to log into in order to change the location of my Home folder, but tried instead to change said location while still logged in as myself...

Of course, everything froze once that was done...

Every subsequent attempt to boot into Gecko Linux after that resulted in a text-based login. Not being familiar enough with the specifics of this distro, I decided to abandon it for now. I will return to it later, as a learning experience, but I don't have time right now.

I also spent a day or two (interspersed with periods of falling asleep at the computer) trying to go into recovery mode for Ubuntu Studio 20.04 and trying various things, in text mode, to try to fix Grub, to no avail. (I just can’t remember where that came by in the timeline.)

Throughout that process, I was able to ascertain that my data, which is kept on separate partitions, is safe and still accessible. (Finally, some good news...)

Another thing that became apparent, at some point during this process, was that the hard drive which hosts all the Linux partitions is no longer being seen as a boot drive in the BIOS! (Of course: I couldn’t expect a streak of good news, could I... :roll: )

So the last thing I've done was to install a new distro yet again: replacing Gecko Linux, which itself had replaced Sparky Linux, I have now installed Linux Mint Xfce edition. Being Ubuntu-based, I will be familiar with the underlying architecture/file system/etc. I tried installing the NVIDIA drivers, and there were drivers that said they were compatible with my cards (were they legacy drivers? I forget...) But it didn't work. I'm not going to waste time on that. Instead, I disabled the third screen, so as to not have any difficulty with the open source Nouveau driver for NVIDIA. At least, I have a usable computer, for the time being.

So now, I am spending a lot of time going through the 3TB USB 3 external drive, which contains, among other things, some old stuff from two computers ago, to determine what, if anything, can be dumped, to make room for my current data to be backed up onto the drive. Once I have trimmed the fat on that drive, I will be able to back up my current data, and wipe the original internal hard drive clean and start over with it.

My friend also sent me an ISO file for Windows 7, so I will try to repair the installation. But if that doesn't work, I may have to nuke that drive as well. And yes, I do know that if I install Windows AFTER installing Linux distros, the Windows boot loader will take over and completely ignore the Linux partitions. So either I will need to install Windows first, or I can deal with whatever Linux distros I want to install, which will recognize the existence of Windows (even if it is currently faulty) and add it to the Grub menu, and when I'm ready, I can physically disconnect the Linux hard drive before installing Windows. Once I reconnect the Linux drive, either things will work, or I will have to do Update Grub, which would take care of the rest of the boot process. This, even if I have to reinstall Windows completely, instead of just repairing the installation (I'll know when I get to that...)




After backing up my data, I’ll have to figure out what to backup to save as many of my settings and configuration as possible. I already know that keeping my /home/.config folder (from my 18.04 installation) will give me a lot of my settings to pick from later. I’m just not sure if I should keep all of my /home folder, or just parts of it.


Then I’ll move on to the nuking and repopulating...
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AnotherFairportfan
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Re: I'm about to nuke my hard drive(s)!

Post by AnotherFairportfan »

I thought i'd had some problems with Windows...
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Re: I'm about to nuke my hard drive(s)!

Post by Typeminer »

Wow. This is the kind of horror story that keeps me from even upgrading to Win10.

I'm sure you'll figure it out, but I'd throw the thing off the roof or put it out in the yard for the alley cats to piss on, or something.
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lake_wrangler
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Re: I'm about to nuke my hard drive(s)!

Post by lake_wrangler »

[kid in front of his class]
"And that is how I spent my Christmas vacation..."
[/kid in front of his class]
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Dave
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Re: I'm about to nuke my hard drive(s)!

Post by Dave »

A couple of thoughts...

(1) Doing dual-boot between Windows and Linux has always been a tricksy proposition. There seems to be a general assumption among the developers who put together Windows, that We Rule The Disk - the boot manager, partition handling, and so forth are extremely Windows-centric. Even if you do manage to get a dual-boot environment working, there's every chance that a subsequent Windows update will either (A) fail to install properly on a dual-boot partition setup, or (B) overwrite the boot environment and prevent your Linux system from booting correctly or at all.

I had to turn off the Windows auto-updater on my (special-purpose) Windows 7 / Debian Linux system, because it would repeatedly spend about 15 minutes installing the latest security update, reboot, try to finish the update, fail, and spend another 15 minutes reverting the update. Lather, rinse, repeat.

These days, it would probably work better to have one OS as the "real" operating system, and install/run the other in a virtual-machine environment provided by the first. Doing this efficiently does require a reasonably recent PC (one with hardware virtualization support) but it has become quite practical.

(2) The flakiness you were seeing, and in particular the repeated USB enumeration problems, all suggest to me that your motherboard/hardware has problems of some sort - maybe a flaky power supply, maybe something more serious. If that's the case, any further work you do on it may put your data at additional risk of loss or corruption.

In your situation, I'd use a separate (known-good) computer of some sort, and a USB-to-SATA or similar adapter to do the salvaging-and-rescuing of your existing files.
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lake_wrangler
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Re: I'm about to nuke my hard drive(s)!

Post by lake_wrangler »

Dave wrote: Mon Dec 28, 2020 3:18 pm A couple of thoughts...

(1) Doing dual-boot between Windows and Linux has always been a tricksy proposition. There seems to be a general assumption among the developers who put together Windows, that We Rule The Disk - the boot manager, partition handling, and so forth are extremely Windows-centric. Even if you do manage to get a dual-boot environment working, there's every chance that a subsequent Windows update will either (A) fail to install properly on a dual-boot partition setup, or (B) overwrite the boot environment and prevent your Linux system from booting correctly or at all.
Yeah, I know... One OS to rule them all, and all that... :roll:

Although I have been running a dual-boot successfully for 5 or so. (Until now, that is... :P )

Dave wrote: Mon Dec 28, 2020 3:18 pmI had to turn off the Windows auto-updater on my (special-purpose) Windows 7 / Debian Linux system, because it would repeatedly spend about 15 minutes installing the latest security update, reboot, try to finish the update, fail, and spend another 15 minutes reverting the update. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Well, we don't need to worry about Windows 7 updates, anymore, do we... :mrgreen:

Dave wrote: Mon Dec 28, 2020 3:18 pmThese days, it would probably work better to have one OS as the "real" operating system, and install/run the other in a virtual-machine environment provided by the first. Doing this efficiently does require a reasonably recent PC (one with hardware virtualization support) but it has become quite practical.
While I am able to use VirtualBox and VMWare Player on my computer, it does not have quite the umpf necessary to use those reliably... Particularly since I use Windows for ZOOM conference calls, and also for MS Access database work. The db work might work in a virtual machine, but the ZOOM would be too demanding... I tried, several years ago with another videoconference call software (ooVoo), and it was not very good at all.

My computer is going on near 9 or 10 year old... With an AMD 4-core FX-4100 processor, which is definitely showing its age...

I am hoping to build myself a more modern setup some time next year, though. And I'll keep this one as a play/test bed kind of thing...

Dave wrote: Mon Dec 28, 2020 3:18 pm(2) The flakiness you were seeing, and in particular the repeated USB enumeration problems, all suggest to me that your motherboard/hardware has problems of some sort - maybe a flaky power supply, maybe something more serious. If that's the case, any further work you do on it may put your data at additional risk of loss or corruption.
I had not considered that. Now that you mention it, I just did a test, this afternoon (though I forget which one, now), and while it passed (I think it was a test on the hard drives), it did have flags of "pre-fail" and "old age", even though it also said that the drives themselves were only 5 years old...

Dave wrote: Mon Dec 28, 2020 3:18 pmIn your situation, I'd use a separate (known-good) computer of some sort, and a USB-to-SATA or similar adapter to do the salvaging-and-rescuing of your existing files.
Then I'd also need a USB hub, as the only other "known-good" computer has 2 USB C ports, and one USB 3, and my external drive is a USB 3 drive...

I also don't have the money for either the USB to SATA cable/adapter, nor the USB hub...

For now, I will have to copy my stuff to the external drive from this computer, while it's still working. Currently, the Linux Mint installation is working fine. I'm not going to turn it off, for now. You know... just in case...
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Re: I'm about to nuke my hard drive(s)!

Post by Warrl »

Dave wrote: Mon Dec 28, 2020 3:18 pm These days, it would probably work better to have one OS as the "real" operating system, and install/run the other in a virtual-machine environment provided by the first. Doing this efficiently does require a reasonably recent PC (one with hardware virtualization support) but it has become quite practical.
Image
The flakiness you were seeing, and in particular the repeated USB enumeration problems, all suggest to me that your motherboard/hardware has problems of some sort - maybe a flaky power supply, maybe something more serious. If that's the case, any further work you do on it may put your data at additional risk of loss or corruption.
Image2

(Add "dying hard drive" and "loose cable between hard drive and MB" to the list of possibilities. That last one's a really cheap fix, by the way, so try it soon even though it's a bit of a long shot.)
lake_wrangler wrote:I use Windows for ZOOM conference calls, and also for MS Access database work. The db work might work in a virtual machine, but the ZOOM would be too demanding...
So install the Linux version... :ugeek:
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Re: I'm about to nuke my hard drive(s)!

Post by lake_wrangler »

Warrl wrote: Mon Dec 28, 2020 9:06 pm
Dave wrote: Mon Dec 28, 2020 3:18 pm These days, it would probably work better to have one OS as the "real" operating system, and install/run the other in a virtual-machine environment provided by the first. Doing this efficiently does require a reasonably recent PC (one with hardware virtualization support) but it has become quite practical.
Image.
Well, once I build a new system next year, I'll be able to do so, as it should be capable enough, with more modern parts and such... Meanwhile, I'll have to make do with what I have.
Warrl wrote: Mon Dec 28, 2020 9:06 pm
The flakiness you were seeing, and in particular the repeated USB enumeration problems, all suggest to me that your motherboard/hardware has problems of some sort - maybe a flaky power supply, maybe something more serious. If that's the case, any further work you do on it may put your data at additional risk of loss or corruption.
Image2.

(Add "dying hard drive" and "loose cable between hard drive and MB" to the list of possibilities. That last one's a really cheap fix, by the way, so try it soon even though it's a bit of a long shot.)
I'll make sure to check.
Warrl wrote: Mon Dec 28, 2020 9:06 pm
lake_wrangler wrote:I use Windows for ZOOM conference calls, and also for MS Access database work. The db work might work in a virtual machine, but the ZOOM would be too demanding...
So install the Linux version... :ugeek:
I did. But the last time I tried using it in Linux, when it came time to share my screen, it would only allow me to whiteboard, rather than share an actual screen and play sound, which the Windows version allowed me to do.

Tonight, I went and installed it again in the temporary Mint installation (temporary, as in only until my data is backed up and I nuke the drive to rebuild it...) And this time around, it allowed me to actually share my screen and sound. Did it work this time around, because it was a newer version than the one I had installed before in Ubuntu Studio? Or was it because it was in Linux Mint? Or perhaps (and I would not be surprised it was this one) because I am currently using the open source Nouveau drivers for NVIDIA, rather than the proprietary driver? Who knows. Who cares. It worked!

It's for a bible study, so we spend 10-12 minutes in praise and worship, which we do by playing two or three YouTube videos. Sharing my screen, I can play the video and sound, and they all can enjoy at the same time. Though technically, I download the videos first, and play them with VLC or some other media player, so as to reduce the strain on the bandwidth: I am not streaming the YouTube video and sending it back through ZOOM, but playing it locally and sharing, so the video only streams in one direction, thereby reducing bandwidth and giving a better sound and video quality. No copyright infringement is intended, only smoothness of playback and sharing over ZOOM. I consider it "personal" use, and definitely am not making any money from this. (Even if I had played the videos directly from YouTube, they wouldn't have gotten any advertising revenue from me, as I use browser extensions that cut out the YouTube ads anyway.)
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Re: I'm about to nuke my hard drive(s)!

Post by TazManiac »

While I'm not actively contributing, I am following with interest...
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Re: I'm about to nuke my hard drive(s)!

Post by Bookworm »

I used to dual boot linux and windows, long ago, in a galaxy far, far next door.

Nowadays I use Linux for my primary system (laptop, which travels with me), I have Windows on a desktop that's used for business (because the data recovery software companies, et al, refuse to create Linux versions), and I have up to four other systems running different OS'es at any particular time.

What I'd suggest, even though it may sound silly, is not to 'dual boot' anything. One one machine, I have a four laptop/ssd sized drive bay unit. (Fits in one 5 1/4" bay, gives four 2.5" drive bays) By using that, I can just hit the 'show boot devices', then pick the one I want to boot from. That way, one drive is some variety of linux, another windows, and I can add others if I feel like it (usually for storage). Yes, they're laptop sized drives for that, but I have full sized drives deeper in the machine, and I can use SSDs. At one point, I had eight drives running. Six on the motherboard, two from an add-on card. Yes, it was pretty silly, but I was doing mass drive erases. Loading it up completely, then ignoring it for a few days was better than playing swap the drive.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
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Re: I'm about to nuke my hard drive(s)!

Post by lake_wrangler »

I already have my Windows on a separate hard disk than my Linux installations. The only difference is that I am relying on Grub to send me to Windows, rather than going into the BIOS to select the drive to boot from. It just so happens that I have started having problems on both sides of the fence roundabout the same time...
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Re: I'm about to nuke my hard drive(s)!

Post by Bookworm »

lake_wrangler wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:32 pm I already have my Windows on a separate hard disk than my Linux installations. The only difference is that I am relying on Grub to send me to Windows, rather than going into the BIOS to select the drive to boot from. It just so happens that I have started having problems on both sides of the fence roundabout the same time...
Yup - that's why I don't depend on it. On that system, the 'most used' was simply set in the BIOS, and if I needed another, I hit the override. I got tired of the constant fight for boot (mostly damaged by Windows, but I won't hold Linux or BSD harmless)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
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Re: I'm about to nuke my hard drive(s)!

Post by Dave »

Bookworm wrote: Wed Dec 30, 2020 12:55 am Yup - that's why I don't depend on it. On that system, the 'most used' was simply set in the BIOS, and if I needed another, I hit the override. I got tired of the constant fight for boot (mostly damaged by Windows, but I won't hold Linux or BSD harmless)
Yeah. Dual-boot complicates things, and the more complicated your disk setup (multiple flavors of partitions, multiple disks, RAID, etc.) the more likely an update will create a damaged configuration. This will of course occur at the worst possible time.

Keeping each individual physical disk dedicated to a single setup reduces the risk a lot. Yes, it costs, but it's an up-front cost which can save you from worse costs down-stream (data-recovery charges, lost data, etc.).
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Re: I'm about to nuke my hard drive(s)!

Post by lake_wrangler »

Come to think of it, I was planning a slight upgrade to this machine, while waiting to be able to afford my new build next year, which included, among other (inexpensive) things, upgrading to used 2.5" SSDs for my system drives. With the M.2 NVMe drives getting better and better, and therefore more and more popular, older SATA SSDs are dropping in price like crazy (which does wonders for the used SSD market...)

You've certainly given me food for thought...
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Re: I'm about to nuke my hard drive(s)!

Post by Bookworm »

The multi-bay unit is the most expensive - I even have a second one sitting in its box somewhere.

You don't have to use huge drives for the boot drives, just put the main data on a second larger drive that both can access. Linux doesn't give two hoots for Microsoft's ACL system, so you can make it exfat or ntfs and everything's fine (other than using filenames with non-supported windows characters)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
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