1

It's an old Asus laptop that i use sometime for programming. It's battery is dead so i have to be connected to power supply whenever i have to use. Was working fine for the last few years(even with a dead battery). Today while i was working on it, the power plug got dislodged from the socket and the computer instantly shutoff (normal, happened a lot previously). But this time when i tried to start it up, the first time- i could hear the wheezy sound(as usual) but the screen was complete black as if it was shutoff. I gave it some time but didn't see anything on the screen so i rebooted. Now the screen lights up proper (as usual) but i get the 'This is not a bootable disk ...Insert a bootable floppy and press any key...' error on the screen. I tried these at the BIOS setup

  1. enable/disable UEFI

  2. check boot priority ( there's only the hard drive and the dvd drive with the hard drive at the top priority).

No result.

I had a live USB of a Kali distro and i could boot from it (UEFI mode). My hard drive is GPT. It has Ubuntu 16.04 and Lubuntu 18.10 dual booted. Six partition including the sda1(grub_boot). There is no secure boot option in my BIOS setup.

Could anybody suggest :

  1. Where should i look to see whether it is a hardware related problem or just the grub is messed up.

  2. Should i go ahead with a Boot-repair or wait until it am sure where he problem is. Thanks in advance 

                   :Update:

I restarted my system and now, as Ill luck would have it , the screen doesn't even light up though i can hear the fan noise see the power lights. Restarted a dozen of times but to no use so gave up. In the evening, i tried as the last ditch effort but now it's seemed the problem got worse as i could not even hear the fan noise or in fact no noise at all. So couldn't figure out if the POST test is happening or not after pressing the power button. So as a final effort, i started the pc on last time and kept in on for a good 20 minutes and then restarted the System. seems it solved the Dead screen issue and now i can see the pc logo and can enter the BIOS setup. But however, the initial problem still persist so now i am going to do some smart test from the live Kali on flash drive. This is a whole new experience, will update if get any major result.

Just Khaithang
  • 133
  • 1
    I would suggest checking SMART for info (it reads your hdd/sdd health from the chips on the drive, so if drive circuitry works you get answers). I'd do this from install media (Kali would likely have it, but can't help there). Please refer to https://askubuntu.com/questions/528072/how-can-i-check-the-smart-status-of-a-ssd-or-hdd-on-current-versions-of-ubuntu-1 I would check health of drive before you consider trying to fsck or start repairing... – guiverc Feb 14 '19 at 08:54
  • Thanks for the suggestions. I felt like a complete headless chicken not knowing where to start. That's actually what is was looking for , A sort of diagnostic tool to check my hardware first before you dive into the boot repairs part. I would check that once i am near my system and report back the outcome(fingers crossed ). Also, is there anyway i can diagnose the CMOS as well without opening the up the System.? (Not a hardware expert ). – Just Khaithang Feb 14 '19 at 09:36
  • To check self monitoring analysis reporting tool*) the easiest tool is a gui tool like gnome-disks (gnome including Ubuntu Unity 7 found on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS), to KDE Partition manager (found in Lubuntu 18.10; it's on my Lubuntu 19.04 system anyway, device->SMART.status) or another like tool (there are many). If using terminal again you have multiple choices (most well know is smartctl though it provides all health.stats thus is somewhat info.overload) thru to easier ones. Your choice which you use. As for CMOS I'd just open & check battery (multimeter) so no idea if software way sorry. – guiverc Feb 14 '19 at 09:46
  • @guiverc, oh man, i was so looking forward to do a SMART test but when i turned up my system it doesn't even light up the screen now. Just like the first boot up after the powercut. Dead screen with only the wheezy start up( POST check ) noise. I guess there's no choice but to open it up now. Or call a hardware technician maybe... – Just Khaithang Feb 14 '19 at 10:09

1 Answers1

0

Finally fixed the problem. Writing an answer for those who may face similar situation. As they say, where there is a will, there is a way'. So i was 90% convinced that it had to be a hardware issue gauging by the unpredictable behaviour of the screen(dead screen, but power is on).Somehow managed to run SMART and self test from command line

smartctl -t long /dev/sda

Actually tried all the three test short, long/extended and conveyance because I could. Just replace the argument 'long' with 'short'.

couldn't make much of the result displayed. Then run it through the GUI disk from disk-repair disk. It showed some generic boot sector issues( nothing serious). I started watching tutorials on YouTube on how to fix such type of hardware issues( yes, i am no hardware genius). Zeroed out some of the grey areas that may have caused the problem like RAM, display wire, ATA/SATA cables etc. Thought of running Disk-repair before opening up the system ( just in case) and voila!. So the problem, as I interprete it, seems to be the boot partition which got messed up with the sudden power disruption. Is that even possible? whatever. Basically it reinstalled grub and I am back into my machine.

So the moral of the story is: Don't assume your problem unless you are 105% sure.

End of story.

Just Khaithang
  • 133