[Les.]

Ed, I am at a loss to come to any conclusion. Consider the history.

Last year a failing monitor lead me astray, so I bought an identical Shuttle and ran that instead, only then diagnosing the monitor fault. Bought a new one.

I had got a 60GB SSD from Dave for the op system. Everything ran OK, but I was annoyed by the faffing around every time I wanted to put something in my files on the spinner, so I bought the 240GB SSD and discarded the spinner. Later, the problems, identical to current began, and I reinstated the two drives (SSD plus HDD) and sent the 240GB back to supplier. It was (presumably) deemed faulty after a couple of weeks, and an identical replacement received.

After a few months, the current round of problems began once more.

Last week’s install absolutely vanilla, other than the calibre, which has not yet been opened.

No Skype, Kodi, Simplescreen recorder, Gimage reader, Shotwell,Xsane,Cheerse, Brassero, or the MSfonts.

I could swop this SSD into the other shuttle and see what happens (but there could be a problem with slightly different graphics card (Gforce GT720 here, GT620 there if I remember correctly) otherwise identical.

Or just buy another SSD for this shuttle. It MUST be a hardware fault of some sort, and other than a spare big SSD, I have a spare “everything”.

By the way, first switch on today was a fail. Switch off, switch on, this time it started OK.

Les.

[Les.]

Since the reinstall, I have added “Calibre”, but not opened it.

One day, the bottom bar had a reddish colour, and icons not responding. I eventually realised that the red was to do with moving the icon bar (I think) but by then I had managed to lose the icons, so had to right click the progeammes from the menu box. They appeared small, and on bottom RHS. Now if you minimise something, it disappears, not to be found in its icon location. Using alt-tab will find it if later use items are closed. Confusing.

BUT, this afternoon I shut down. When switched on, the boot drive was missing.

Boot from CD

Error read ….   etc.

Force shut down. this time it starts OK.

This must end somewhere, but WHERE?

Buy another 250GB SSD, put iin the other identical computer and reinstall yet again?????

Nothing has gone amiss since the reinstall to screw GRUB up.

It surely MUST be hardware.

Les.

[Les.]

Bob, your link did not go anywhere, but if it has me bathing in the sea mid winter, or mid summer for that matter, it can stay invisible.

I think I was destined for migraine from infancy. I remember in (probably) 1946, the local school (Church funded?, fairly involved anyway) had us visit the little village hall on Ash Wednesday after the Vicar “did his talk”, where we had a minor bean feast. (lemonade and cake probably). However, we were all given a small tin of “Horlicks tablets”. Never seen them since. Obviously some sort of powdered milk and Horlicks mixture. I had a couple, and shortly afterwards got a “behind the eyes” headache, which 70 odd years later says “Migraine” to me.

The following year (or that same one) we had a Christmas party at school as usual. I came home sick and with headache, again typical.

At age 9 I had rheumatic fever, which does affect the heart of course. Very many migraine sufferers have a history including heart problems.

In my teens, at work, I would feel very sick, vomit, and often urgently visit toilet. 10 mins later, as right as rain, go and eat a cream cake.

It was 1964 when I first had the visual disturbance typical of migraine, and it was diagnosed as such. Back then an attack meant bed and wishing to be dead (almost) and would maybe clear late evening. More in next few days.

Now most attacks may or may not have some form of visual disturbance, may or may not include headache, but all slow me own. A common factor now is always to feel “weak at the knees”, walking slowly, struggling up stairs, which I almost run up normally.

Generally, I just try to ignore it, but sometimes, like last week, it is worse than normal. But I survive, and that weakened heart with leaky valves has not bothered me in the least so far.

Les.

[Les.]

I have had two days of a sort of migraine, could not do work (needing concentration) on the PC, so I have read one book and halfway thro another.

Very pleased with this reader, though I would have been happier at half the price.

Thanks for suggestion BL.

Cheers, Les.

[Les.]

Important stuff from HOME folder copied to my backup.

Mint 19.1 installed to SSD deleting all existing data.

All backups transferred to new Home folder.

Thunderbird and firefox loaded with old info.

Vanilla install only, will wait to install wanted programmes, then singly as required.

It works, fingers crossed, we shall see what happens.

Les.

[Les.]

New Ereader arrived this morning whilst we were out.

It looks OK, but it will be later or tomorrow before I can assess it properly.

BL, I already have Calibre, but will look at the other stuff.

Cheers, Les.

[Les.]

I took the car in for the bodywork on Monday morning. Collected it late morning today. It all looks OK.

The end of another saga I trust.

Les.

[Les.]

Early this morning as I lay in bed, I decided the best thing to do would be to copy everything, full reinstall, without adding any of the non-vanilla programs (esp Kodi) until I need them. (Gimage reader, xsane, skype, simple screen recorder and such like. ( Ed, your advice I now see).

Anyway, it was difficult this morning, but did lead directly to the single user mode.

I will show all the steps, just in case it suggests anything, bearing in mind I still have a (no longer strong) possibility that there is still the SSD having had one fail.

Boot from CD

Error read and write to outside of HD0. (no time to read full info before it moved on itself)

Need to load kernel

Menu with 12 lines, —– generic

——- Recovery etc

I selected 1st recovery, fail, likewise 2nd, 3rd and 4th.

5th choice did load a kernel.

New DOS style message

First line included End kernel panic not syncing:VFS:unable to mount root fs on unknown block (0,0)

computer unresponsive, so I did a forced shutdown and then started it again.

Same routine, but this time I choose the 6th recovery kernel. It loads.

Note in following, some White Text on black back ground, some normal black text on white background These are underlined .

Recovery menu

<OK> started DBUS system message BUS Clean

Try to make free space

Starting manage install and generate color ptofiles

– Broken Packages

FSCK

Check AI

<OK> Started Manage Install and generate color profiles

Update Grub Bootloader

Network

Starting Avhi mDMS/DMS-SD STACK

Boot

Drop to root shell Prompt

<OK> STARTED Avhi mDMS/DMD-SD Stack.ry

System Summary

<OK> Started Daily apt upgrade and clean activities

<OK>

What next, ESC or Enter? Try ESC. Gives familiar menu

Resume

Clean

DPKG

FSCK

Grub

Network

Root

System summary

Choose GRUB

/lib recovery-mode /recovery-menu line80: / etc/

default/res: no such file or directory

(+ About another 18 lines)

Done Finished, Please press enter. Returns to Menu

FSCK Can not, needs to be read only Returns to Menu

DPGK reading cache

can not upgrade

An upgrade from Tessa to to Bionic not possible.

Done Finished, Please press enter. Returns to Menu

Resume, not all drivers will be loaded

Loads Linux OK.

Shutdown. Leave until later today

Start. Loads OK

 

That is where I am now. I will do a bit of house keeping, copy all my stuff away and then do the full reinstall.

Les.

[Les.]

Ddan, hmm. No, over my head I am afraid.

The only time I got into “Single user mode”, I tried the wrong command first (see many posts back).

I just tried another three times, twice following the Shutdown command from terminal. Again, no luck. I have tried both the RH “SHIFT” and the LH “SHIFT” control. I have tried both holding down, and tapping. I tried from switch on, and from a moment or so after the “Boot from CD” line.  — (First boot set for CD)

With that single exception recently, Mint 18 and 19 have NEVER made a proper “Restart”, not even after clicking the “Install” icon from an INSTALL routine.

If I need a reboot, I just use “Shutdown” and press start button when completed.

Les.

[Les.]

Here we go again! Since Ed’s last message, I have tried at least half a dozen times to start whilst pressing SHIFT. Pressing and holding until normal mint start, pressing tap tap tap until normal mint start. It would not go to a command line. I tried with the shutdown command as before, but (as has been the norm), it never “restarts”  — just that one time when Ed suggested it.

This morning:

boot from CD

read error. —  ctr-alt-del  —  shutdown button, shutdown button to start

boot from CD

error reading grub  —  ctr-alt-del  —  shutdown button, shutdown button to start

boot from CD  read error. —  ctr-alt-del  —  shutdown button, shutdown button to start

Insert install DVD, boot to live image.

SSD is visible, and can be mounted and unmounted.

Shutdown and remove DVD.

Repeats the   Boot from CD stuff again.

Again insert DVD and boot to live image.

Try DDan’s suggestion

sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/loop0:1.8GB    (the boot DVD I assume)

Disk / dev/sda: 223GB blah blahblah

units       sectors       of              /*   512 = 512bytes

sector size (logical/physical)                ditto

IO size                                                      ditto

Disk label type     DOS

Disk ID 0xf243a422

Device     Boot     Start         ends             sectors              size     ID    Type

SDA1         *        2048     468860927    468858880  223GB     83   linux

 

Sudo   Blkid

blah blah blah  sectors OK, no ewrrors

 

Chroot   Hmm, but what should follow. Old man stumped again.

Shutdown.   NORMAL START!!!!!

Here I am, just baffled.

Les.

 

 

[Les.]

Drezha, it is amazing how that happens, the old “wait for a bus thing”. Late last night, I did another pointless Ebay search, only to find it was not pointless. A Kobo Aura one, the larger 7.8″, “returns” at £130, so I just grabbed it.

Otherwise this would have been to you with a “Yes please”.

Hopefully I will return in a few days with a good report.

Thanks again, Les.

[Les.]

It looks like time to give up on the Ebay Kobo BL linked to earlier.

I asked my nephew if he would get it for me. He tried, got the message that only one left in Winsford, then an error message.

Tried again later, same response. It is suggested it could be sold but listing not removed. It is still there.

C’est la vie.

Les.

[Les.]

Giz a job. I could do that!

(With apologies to BFTBS)  Les.

[Les.]

I though I had got around the system. We have an on-island carrier and if you get stuff sent to their UK depot, they will deliver to me. I used it a few years ago to buy a load of special plastic guttering. They have now set up a dedicated service, Ship2Man, so I have an account and my own UK delivery address. Great, here we go.

Oh No! Click and Collect only. It seems I am stuffed until I try something else.

Les.

[Les.]

No, nothing to do with batteries. If I want 10 M6 nuts off Ebay, the first one I open may say “Does not deliver etc.”, the next does not. They are probably both in China. It started a couple of years ago, then morphed into “Does not deliver to United Kingdom”, which was nonsense since in fact the island is NOT part of UK. More recently it has returned to “Isle of Man”.

I think it is down to post codes. There are more than one purchasable sets of tables of post codes. Some do not recognise us, others do. I buy stuff regularly from a Guernsey based company, usually ordering online. Two years ago, they suddenly were unable to post to my “unknown” location, even though my address details in their “profile” of me was unchanged. I had to use their free phone number to order and complain. After 18 months it started to work again. They admitted it was a problem with their software. I think just wrong table of codes.

I have had similar with companies in US, where I can’t get past their order system for the same reason.

It is well known over here, so I contacted a Gov minister I was advised was the appropriate person. His reply was so bland and pathetic I just shrugged. Normally I would have continued the barrage, but I realised it would have been akin to talking to a two year old, even though it is a matter of concern for manx residents.

I am still trying to think of a way of overcoming Argos, maybe getting my D in L to order it for me.

Les.

[Les.]

Well, I kept BlackLion’s link open in firefox, and decided to try to do something. I could use the “Contact Seller” and try to get them to supply to IOM. They had numerous “Question categories” already with pre-supplied answers. I went for “other” and after logging in, was taken to a page where it said “Review other questions, we are very busy so can not answer a question now”.

I really don’t understand the “Can’t supply to IOM” business. Postage is the same, if it is a carrier cost, a separate price could be offered. When I see the message, I usually just move on. On a few occasions I have asked and got things sorted, but it all seems just a way to avoid business.

Les.

[Les.]

BL, I am tempted. VERY tempted. Needless to say they “Don’t post to Isle of Man”. Must go, my pal has just arrived. Cheers, Les.

[Les.]

Ed, thanks for messages, I saw them as emails, with results following. NOTE, I just realised that “NOW” was part of your terminal line. I did not add that, probably resulting in the 1 min delay. anyway:-

Ed, thanks for messages. I did as advised (shutdown -rF) which it schedules one minute ahead. On time, screen blanks, then the Mint icon appeared, with the first three of five progressing dots on screen, then nothing. I went out to PO, and still sitting there unchanged.

CtrlAlt-Del, no response.

Forced shutdown. Switch on, then hold Shift.

Menu, select advanced options. 10 choices.

Select 2nd line, recovery. 8 options.

Select Grub.

First line lib/recovery-mode line 80: etc/default/res

No such file or directory.

There follow about 8 lines ending generic

1 line ending .elf

finally line ending .bin

Done, enter.

Select FSCK Can not enter, not in read only mode.

Select DPKG

reading cache can not upgrade. Upgrade from tessa to bionic not supported.

Select Resume

reboots without some drivers.

Restart – which it DOES. It must be 2 years since a restart filed to hang at the Mint icon.

Does any of the above mean anything? Not to me.

Les.

[Les.]

Oh dear! I spoke too soon. At switch on this morning, not boot found, please insert boot disc etc. I will try Ctrl-Alt-Del hust once.

Success  —-   for now.

Les.

[Les.]

Yes, I have seen those. See what I mean about geometric relationship between screen size and cost? 6″ =£50, 6.8″ = £130, 8″ = £240. Compare that with tablets.

I could not persuade myself in a 100 years to go for that super 8″, but MAYBE I could consider the 6.8″, but it will take a lot of persuading.

I have looked at the Pocketbooks, but they seem to have no presence over here. I will look at the various EU ebays to see if anything there (better rush, it could be + customs duty soon).

I have not given up yet.

Les.

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