computers never lie???

[NorthernSuze]

Oh, dear if they don't... I have had my fingers rapped. You see my poor computer (read Arch Enemy) didn't survive the annual family, "let's see if we can make mummy/grummy's computer do this!" New Year's weekend blitz.

I only wish the webcam had been running so as to catch the looks of stunned disbelief when the words: Dummy, Dummy, Dummy registered.

Can anyone give us the history on this rather unique, sharply pointed error message? It certainly provided a lot of entertainment! The consensus: the best New Year's ever!

Suze snowed in with -25C
happily running a clean load of 10.4

[HermanAB]

That is not really an error message. It means that there is no valid device on that ATA port.

[Lucradia]

If there is a drive there, and it's giving that message, it usually means the MBR is corrupt, (this is fixed by using DBAN to wipe the entire drive completely, until it's fixed, Windows won't even install) or you accidentally punched the part of the laptop that has the harddrive. (Even if the harddrive looks physically fine, the harddrive will never work again.)

[christopher.wortman]

dropped it? lol that sucks

[NorthernSuze]

Thanks for the quick response everyone I really appreciate all the help.

@HermanAB - looking again at the message we see how obvious the "ata" is (palm hits forehead) guess we didn't get past the triple Dummys in our google searches!

@Lucradia - The MBR was the problem, I believe, since the hd accepted a reload. Thanks for letting me know about DBAN. I am putting Ubuntu on one of our old laptops for the neighbours, and wondered about the old data.

@christopher.wortman No-o-o, I must never drop my laptop. It is the only non-apple machine left in the house. I'm afraid a dead laptop would be my Swan Song here at Ubuntu with spare MAC in the house.... LOL thankfully all is well with my baby.