fsck hangs up before boot

**relic70** · November 19th, 2009

The normal fsck check before booting has hung up on two occasions in the last couple of days. Probably the first fsck checks since a fresh install.

My system: dual boot Dell Dimension 8300
first hard drive - sda - Windows XP
second hard drive - sdb - Ubuntu 9.10, separate /home partition

The second hard drive was a new larger drive to replace the original smaller drive. I did a fresh install of 9.10 on that drive.

after the fsck hang up, both times, I did a Ctrl-Alt-Delete to kill the process and boot.

The fsck message is as follows during the second fsck check

fsck from util-linux-ng 2.16

dev/sdb1 : clean xx/xx files xx/xx blocks
dev/sdb5 : clean xx/xx files xx/xx blocks (check in 4 mounts)
modem-manager: Loaded Plugin: Huawei
modem-manager: Loaden Plugin: Option High-Speed

(there were about 10 of these and then)

modem-manager (tty S1) opening serial device .....

And this is where it hung up for almost one hour before I stopped fsck

Nothing like this ever happened in previous versions - 9.04, etc.

Anyone else have this happen?

Any input to solve this problem would be greatly appreciated.

**valeryc** · November 20th, 2009

I've got exactly the same problem on Dell Mini9 with ext2 filesystem. Every time it does fsck on boot it hang after some modem messages (as described above).

**relic70** · November 30th, 2009

I find it difficult to believe that nobody besides myself and valeryc don't have a problem like this with fsck!

**mikodo** · December 1st, 2009

Originally Posted by relic70

The normal fsck check before booting has hung up on two occasions in the last couple of days. Probably the first fsck checks since a fresh install.

My system: dual boot Dell Dimension 8300
first hard drive - sda - Windows XP
second hard drive - sdb - Ubuntu 9.10, separate /home partition

The second hard drive was a new larger drive to replace the original smaller drive. I did a fresh install of 9.10 on that drive.

after the fsck hang up, both times, I did a Ctrl-Alt-Delete to kill the process and boot.

The fsck message is as follows during the second fsck check

fsck from util-linux-ng 2.16

dev/sdb1 : clean xx/xx files xx/xx blocks
dev/sdb5 : clean xx/xx files xx/xx blocks (check in 4 mounts)
modem-manager: Loaded Plugin: Huawei
modem-manager: Loaden Plugin: Option High-Speed

(there were about 10 of these and then)

modem-manager (tty S1) opening serial device .....

And this is where it hung up for almost one hour before I stopped fsck

Nothing like this ever happened in previous versions - 9.04, etc.

Anyone else have this happen?

Any input to solve this problem would be greatly appreciated.

I've started to get this on boot also. No ideas as to what is going on, never happened in 8.04 and have been using Karmic for a month now and it just started happening!

Any ideas?

**relic70** · December 1st, 2009

I posted the same problem on the Linux Questions forum and the responder there said it was not a problem with fsck but with the modem. Hence, the "tty s1" at the hangup. In my case, I have a PCI modem card. He suggested removing the card or if the modem is built in to disable it in the BIOS.

I'm going to remove the PCI card and see what happens.

**BigMeanMikeRich** · December 3rd, 2009

I've been having the same problem with Karmic. Upgraded from 9.04 (which ran flawlessly since I installed it the day after release), had problems immediately with modem-manager hanging the system at boot. The only fix that worked was to remove modem-manager with apt.

Now, a month later, every time I boot the system after a complete power-down, the system hangs at a message that reads 'fsck from util-linux-ng 2.16' Three things stand out:

1) The hard disk activity light is not on, indicating that fsck, if any was even being performed, is not active

2) I do *not* get messages about modem-manager like relic70, as I removed it earlier.

3) I do not have any modems, onboard or PCI.

Alt+Ctrl+Del reboots the system, which comes up fine. The next time I turn the system on from a complete power-down, the fsck fiasco occurs again.

**valeryc** · December 3rd, 2009

I don't have a modem on my Dell Mini9 either. Also, if it's an issue with modem manager, why it only happens after fsck run and not on regular boots. I've manually decreased frequency of "on-boot" fsck runs and will wait for a solution for a month or so and if it doesn't come will install Win7 instead.