10.04 and 10.10 recurringly crash (target system does not have requested /sbin/init )

[ashtophoenix]

Hi - After trying most of the solutions I could think of, including reinstalling and upgrading, I'm posting here hoping someone would take me out of this misery now.

Laptop：thinkpad t500

I was running Ubuntu 10.04 and it froze. I rebooted and it shows the following message and gives me the "initramfs" prompt:



BUG: unable to handle kernel paging request at 00f44000
...
...
mount: Mounting /dev on /root/dev failed: No such file or directory
mount: Mounting /sys on /root/sys failed: No such file or directory
mount: Mounting /proc on /root/proc failed: No such file or directory

Target filesystem doesn't have requested /sbin/init
No init found. Try passing init= bootarg




Here are the things that i've tried:



Fresh Installed 10.10 from live cd and in 2 days this happened again on 10.10 as well.
Tried to run fsck from live cd and it doesn't want to run as it thinks the device/resource is busy or mounted
Tried to run recovery mode from GRUB and it comes and stops at initramfs prompt as well.


I am more interested in getting to the root of this because a fresh install just doesn't seem to help. It happens again and again - every 2-3 days. And I'm using my Laptop in the most basic way. Browsing and coding.

Please help me as this is really affecting my work now.

Sincerely,

-Sid

[fabricator4]

Try running the disk manufacturers testing programs on the HDD. One of my machines became flakey after many months of normal use, and after a couple of re-installs I tracked it to a progressively failing HDD. Replacement of the HDD is the only good option.

The Ultimate Boot CD (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/) might be useful to you for testing.

Note that the most useful manufacturers testing programs are normally destructive.

Chris

[fabricator4]

Try running the disk manufacturers testing programs on the HDD. One of my machines became flakey after many months of normal use, and after a couple of re-installs I tracked it to a progressively failing HDD. Replacement of the HDD is the only good option.

The Ultimate Boot CD (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/) might be useful to you for testing.

Note that the most useful manufacturers testing programs are normally destructive.

Chris

[ashtophoenix]

Thanks for the advice. I ran the manufacturer's tests and received this:

Error code 0000: Read verification failed

<<An error was found. Call for service>>

I have already ordered another hard drive. Let's see if that fixes it.

-Sid

[fabricator4]

Thanks for the advice. I ran the manufacturer's tests and received this:

Error code 0000: Read verification failed

<<An error was found. Call for service>>

I have already ordered another hard drive. Let's see if that fixes it.

-Sid

Good one. Well, not good that the HDD failed, but good that you could verify the problem quickly. I think you can expect to have a rock solid machine again once the new drive is installed :-)

Chris

[ashtophoenix]

Hi Chris - I don't wanna jump the gun but installed the new hdd today and so far so good. Hopefully this problem is a thing of the past now.

Thanks for the advice.

-Sid

[fabricator4]

Hi Sid, I'm fairly confident your problems should all be over now. In the disk utility you can get a report on the SMART status of your drive. I'm not sure how reliable this is for monitoring the health of the hard drive - I suspect it's still a good idea to keep backups of all your important data.

Chris.