[davidmatzdorf]

I think it was indeed a British/American keyboard problem: \ and | are on a key marked with # and ~

It's a British PC and I think the keyboard assignment has defaulted back to American.

I now have reams of text to fish through. Back when I have done so...

[gfne]

When you type dmesg|less as opposed to dmesg alone, gives you the ability to scroll up and down using the keyboards up and down, versus just seeing just the end of it.

[davidmatzdorf]

I searched for "heat", but found nothing. I'll scroll through and copy down anything that looks suspicious as I go:

ACPI: BIOS bug: multiple APIC/MADT found, using 0

PEBS disabled due to CPU errata

A number of addresses, to many to list out, report "PME# disabled". Others (a majority) report "PME# supported from D0 D3hot D3cold".

HEST: Table is not found!

BAR 6: can't assign mem pref (size 0x20000)

Several instances of "Firmware did not grant requested _OSC control"

ERST: Table is not found!

"Cannot allocate resource for EISA slot 1" - then the same for slots 2 to 6.

Attempting to load BIOS image from PRAMIN
BIOS checksum invalid

Attempting to load BIOS image from PROM
BIOS signature not found

Attempting to load BIOS image from PCIROM
appears to be valid

BIT table 'd' not found

Parsing VBIOS init table 1 at offset 0xEC03
Failed parsing init table opcode INIT_CONFIGURE_MEM -19

uvcvideo: failed to initialise the device (-5)

That's all I could find. I think my brain is full ;-)

[davidmatzdorf]

I have to go to bed. It's 2 am here and I have a 9 am appointment.

If you can post a reply, then I'll try to pick this up again at some point tomorrow.

Perhaps it's a super-dumb question, but how do I exit from the dmesg|less full-screen window, get back to terminal and then back to the Ubuntu desktop and menus? None of the obvious keystrokes such as Esc or Enter seem to work.

EDIT: Ctrl-Alt-F7, as you suggested above, does the trick.

Many thanks for your help.

[gfne]

Two possible reasons:

Bios update went wrong. RAM is bad. So lets test the RAM. Reboot, as clears the BIOS area, press the ESC button, once per 1/2 a second or so. I'm looking to get to a list asking you to choose a language. After pressing on English, you should get to a list to do a memtest.

[gfne]

To exit the dmesg|less screen, just press q to quit.

[Saga Lout]

WOW - I certainly had a bit of catching up to do on this thread this morning. From everything I've read, including all the mounting attempts, the hard disk simply isn't there. Even BIOS had its doubts at one stage. I would give a try to cloning the Vaio Partition off the old HDD on to the new to see if that will kickstart the three DVD set recovery. It wil, of course, only revert to Vista but once the new drive is settled in and recognised, that could be replaced.

By the way, on my British laptop keyboard, the character ¦ is the key it's printed on plus the AltGreek key.

[davidmatzdorf]

Originally Posted by gfne

Bios update went wrong. RAM is bad. So lets test the RAM. Reboot, as clears the BIOS area, press the ESC button, once per 1/2 a second or so. I'm looking to get to a list asking you to choose a language. After pressing on English, you should get to a list to do a memtest.

Thanks. I never updated the BIOS, although it may have been auto-updated if the machine was previously on any auto-update routines from Sony Vaio - I'm only aware that it was set up to auto-update Vista, AVG Free and Windows Defender.

I'll try the RAM test later, after my morning appointment.

Originally Posted by Saga Lout

WOW - I certainly had a bit of catching up to do on this thread this morning. From everything I've read, including all the mounting attempts, the hard disk simply isn't there. Even BIOS had its doubts at one stage. I would give a try to cloning the Vaio Partition off the old HDD on to the new to see if that will kickstart the three DVD set recovery. It will, of course, only revert to Vista but once the new drive is settled in and recognised, that could be replaced.

The old HD is sitting in a static-proof bag somewhere, having been removed as defective (which it very likely was) by the repair shop. I haven't any way to connect it to anything, even if it is OK.

If I start Ubuntu on the laptop, is it possible to remove the Ubuntu CD from the drive and keep working, i.e., is everything that it needs to run Ubuntu, without installing it on the HD, loaded into RAM or does it refer constantly to the CD? If is in RAM, is there any chance of removing the Ubuntu CD and then starting the old three DVD recovery set from the CD drive whilst working from Ubuntu?

[gfne]

I believe it is accessed from cd. Don't think its loaded into RAM. Even if it was, starting the dvd restore cd wouldn't be an option because it needs to boot from it.

[Saga Lout]

Originally Posted by davidmatzdorf

I haven't any way to connect it to anything, even if it is OK.

Converters are cheap enough. You really need two, either PATA or SATA - whichever is appropriate - to USB. Attach them to a working system, buy ATI and away you go. The old system is cloned to the new disk even if the new one is ten times the size.

[davidmatzdorf]

Originally Posted by gfne

...RAM is bad. So lets test the RAM. Reboot, as clears the BIOS area, press the ESC button, once per 1/2 a second or so. I'm looking to get to a list asking you to choose a language. After pressing on English, you should get to a list to do a memtest.

Back after a couple of days of seasonal responsibilities.

I tried this, but pressing Esc every half-second from start-up gives me a menu with three options:

Boot menu
1. Internal Optical Drive
2. Internal Hard Disk Drive

<Enter Setup>

Selecting 1 loads Ubuntu; selecting 2 gives me the familiar "cannot find operating system" message; selecting 3 enters the BIOS. What I don't get is a menu to choose a language or do a memtest.

[davidmatzdorf]

Originally Posted by Saga Lout

Converters are cheap enough. You really need two, either PATA or SATA - whichever is appropriate - to USB. Attach them to a working system, buy ATI and away you go. The old system is cloned to the new disk even if the new one is ten times the size.

I think I half-understand this - tell me if I'm getting it. The idea here is to reproduce the old "restore-system-to-original-state" partition from the old HD on the new HD and then use it to enable the laptop to boot up from the 3 DVD set that I made in March 2007.

If that's what you want me to try, I think what I should do is to contact the repair shop [after the holiday], ask them if they ever tried this and then, if they didn't, take the laptop and the old HD back there and get them to do the cloning. I'm sure they'll have the converters.

It still doesn't explain why some aspects of the machine seem to "see" the new HD and some don't, which is a bit weird, I think.

Thanks again.

[Saga Lout]

It is weird but I think you're right to involve the original repairers.