John Jason Jordan
2006-11-29 04:29:12 UTC
As soon as I received my R3240 in June, 2005 I reformatted the hard
drive and put Linux on it. I tried several distros, but quickly settled
on Ubuntu Hoary amd-64. I am currently running Dapper amd-64. This
computer is my first foray into Linux and I am not a computer science
major, so consider that I am still pretty much a newbie.
During the first year or so I experienced occasional corruption of the
main partition. Luckily I was always able to recover unscathed with
fsck. Nevertheless, the continuous corruption was disturbing.
Eventually I came to blame the ext3 filesystem. Then, several months
ago, I decided to upgrade the 60 GB 4200 rpm hard drive that came in
the computer to an 80 GB 7200 rpm drive. I didn't really need the
space; I was just after speed. After the successful upgrade I continued
to experience corruption. At this point I became convinced that ext3
had a bug somewhere. After all, it happened on the original hard drive
and again on a brand new replacement drive. What else could it be?
So yesterday I whipped my R3240 out of my backpack at the university
and turned it on. The Compaq splash screen came up, but that was all.
No grub menu. Nothing. It just sat there. Of course, I had a
presentation due in four hours and it was all on this computer. Why do
these things always happen when you can't afford for them to happen? I
recall my father referring to this kind of situation as "the perversity
of inanimate matter."
In desperation I went to the university CompSci department where they
have a help desk for Linux users. The help desk person said "it appears
it is not finding your hard drive." Well, duh! That made sense. Why
didn't I figure that out?
Since I knew how to get at the hard drive compartment, we rummaged
around the help desk area and found a small phillips head screwdriver,
and then reseated the hard drive, whereupon grub came up and the
computer booted normally. (Whew!!!)
That was yesterday. Since then it has happened twice more. I now carry
a small screwdriver in my backpack. I note that the problem only occurs
after walking with the computer in my backpack, where it slaps against
my back with each step. The backpack is padded, but it is also full of
books and stuff. Evidently this is enough jostling to unseat the hard
drive.
I think I need a new something-or-another. Since it happened with the
original hard drive as well, I am supposing that the problem is in the
connector on the computer, not the connector on the hard drives. I have
the Maintenance and Service Guide, but it does not show exactly where
the connector goes or what its part number is.
So has anyone run into this problem before? Does anyone know if there
is a replacement connector available, or what its part number is? Or
where it connects? Or how to replace it? Or does anyone have any other
suggestions?
drive and put Linux on it. I tried several distros, but quickly settled
on Ubuntu Hoary amd-64. I am currently running Dapper amd-64. This
computer is my first foray into Linux and I am not a computer science
major, so consider that I am still pretty much a newbie.
During the first year or so I experienced occasional corruption of the
main partition. Luckily I was always able to recover unscathed with
fsck. Nevertheless, the continuous corruption was disturbing.
Eventually I came to blame the ext3 filesystem. Then, several months
ago, I decided to upgrade the 60 GB 4200 rpm hard drive that came in
the computer to an 80 GB 7200 rpm drive. I didn't really need the
space; I was just after speed. After the successful upgrade I continued
to experience corruption. At this point I became convinced that ext3
had a bug somewhere. After all, it happened on the original hard drive
and again on a brand new replacement drive. What else could it be?
So yesterday I whipped my R3240 out of my backpack at the university
and turned it on. The Compaq splash screen came up, but that was all.
No grub menu. Nothing. It just sat there. Of course, I had a
presentation due in four hours and it was all on this computer. Why do
these things always happen when you can't afford for them to happen? I
recall my father referring to this kind of situation as "the perversity
of inanimate matter."
In desperation I went to the university CompSci department where they
have a help desk for Linux users. The help desk person said "it appears
it is not finding your hard drive." Well, duh! That made sense. Why
didn't I figure that out?
Since I knew how to get at the hard drive compartment, we rummaged
around the help desk area and found a small phillips head screwdriver,
and then reseated the hard drive, whereupon grub came up and the
computer booted normally. (Whew!!!)
That was yesterday. Since then it has happened twice more. I now carry
a small screwdriver in my backpack. I note that the problem only occurs
after walking with the computer in my backpack, where it slaps against
my back with each step. The backpack is padded, but it is also full of
books and stuff. Evidently this is enough jostling to unseat the hard
drive.
I think I need a new something-or-another. Since it happened with the
original hard drive as well, I am supposing that the problem is in the
connector on the computer, not the connector on the hard drives. I have
the Maintenance and Service Guide, but it does not show exactly where
the connector goes or what its part number is.
So has anyone run into this problem before? Does anyone know if there
is a replacement connector available, or what its part number is? Or
where it connects? Or how to replace it? Or does anyone have any other
suggestions?