Hi, I have been using Ubuntu 10.04 for over a year on a Lenovo T60 and have been very happy with it.

However the other day, on reboot, I got a weird error which is preventing me from logging in to the desktop. I get two errors before the login screen, click "OK" and successfully make it to the login screen, then upon entering my password I get the same two errors and the desktop does not load.

The error messages are: "/var/lib/gdm/.ICEauthority cannot be found" and "gconf-sanity-check-2 exited with status 256".

Prior to getting stuck at the login screen I was actually logged in to Ubuntu and got an error to the effect of "Can't write to device" -- this was using Alpine to access email, it would normally save a copy of sent-mail automatically but I guess the programme didn't have permission to do so.

I am very far from knowledgeable about Grub, diagnostics, or fixing serious problems like this -- so please excuse if I haven't provided some important information. I can get the Grub command line and provide information about the system from there if someone instructs me.

I notice there are messages on this forum about .ICEauthority and gconf-sanity but I can't put the pieces together.

Two other notable facts:
- I was able to boot DamnSmallLinux from CD (but couldn't getwireless)
- I was unable to boot Puppy Linux from CD


So maybe RAM is fine and it's a hard drive problem?