[ltp] Help! Long boot times!

[Frank Schaeckermann]

Atul,
I have read about problems booting after enabling Hibernation. In fact I 
seem to recall, that on one try I had to do a rescue-boot from the Red 
Hat 9.0 Installation CD, do a chroot and re-write the MBR by running 
lilo. Then the problem was gone.

Hope that helps!

Frank

Atul Chitnis achitnis-at-exocore.com |Linux on ThinkPads| wrote:
> Help!
> 
> Last night, I had to boot into Windows to clear up some space on my T30, 
> to allow me to create a hardware hibernation file (using IBM's program to 
> do so, as discussed in the past on this list). My earlier file got knocked 
> off when I had to reinstall the Windows side after I messed it up.
> 
> After doing so, and booting off the IBM hibernation file creation program 
> as usual, and creating the file, I rebooted - and the machine hung. And 
> when I say hung, I mean not even able to go into BIOS! I get the 
> Thinkpad splashscreen, enter my bootup password, and that's it - the 
> machine freezes.
> 
> Investigating it, I removed the hard disk from the system - and the 
> machine powers on fine, am able to go into BIOS setup, boot of a Knoppix 
> CD, etc. Put hard disk back in, and freeze. The HDD light on the panel 
> above the keyboard goes on and stays on.
> 
> I tried everything (reset BIOS defaults, change boot orders, etc.) no go. 
> Then, as I was looking at another hung screen, I got a phone call, which 
> kept me busy for about 5 minutes. About 3 minutes into the call, my 
> machine suddenly beeped, and booted as it normally would (grub, etc.). I 
> was able to boot into Linux on the hard disk as I normally would (and I 
> immediately burnt all my important data to CD using the built-in CD 
> writer). I checked dmesg and /var/log/messages - no error messages at all.
> 
> Then I rebooted again - freeze. This time I let it sit there for a few 
> minuts. 3 minutes later the machine beeped, and booted. This time I went 
> into Windows, and checked it out - no problems there either! I did a 
> scandisk, and no problems detected.
> 
> Booted again off Linux (after a 3 minute wait) into single user mode, and 
> fsck'd the system's partitions - no problems found.
> 
> The system acts perfectly normal after the 3 minute wait.
> 
> Seemed that it had something to do with the hibernation file, so knocked 
> off save2dsk.bin from the Windows partition, and things started behaving 
> normally again. Put the file back, or recreate it, and the problem is 
> back.
> 
> This is weird, because I have had a hibernation file before that worked 
> just fine. Has anyone faced this problem before, or maybe have a clue 
> about what is going on?
> 
> Atul
>