[Bug 36667] Dapper Beta: Boot process stalls on "Mounting root filesystem..."

[Matt Bretl]

Public bug reported:

Affects: Ubuntu
       Severity: Major
       Priority: (none set)
         Status: Rejected
Affects: linux-source-2.6.15 (Ubuntu)
       Severity: Major
       Priority: (none set)
         Status: Confirmed


Description:
I have not been able to boot from the Flight 4, Flight 5, Flight 6, or
Beta LiveCDs on my desktop system.  Here's the full walkthrough:

1. I press Enter to select "Start Ubuntu". The system displays "Loading
essential drivers" and then stalls on the next line, "Mounting root
filesystem..." The orange IDE activity LED stays fully lit for about a
minute.

2. Eventually, the splash screen disappears, and following is displayed:

Uncompressing Linux... Ok, booting the kernel.
hdc: ide_intr: huh? expected NULL handler on exit
hdc: ide_intr: huh? expected NULL handler on exit
Buffer I/O error on device hdc, logical block 156349
hdc: ide_intr: huh? expected NULL handler on exit
hdc: ide_intr: huh? expected NULL handler on exit
Buffer I/O error on device hdc, logical block 156349
hdc: ide_intr: huh? expected NULL handler on exit
hdc: ide_intr: huh? expected NULL handler on exit
Buffer I/O error on device hdc, logical block 156349
hdc: ide_intr: huh? expected NULL handler on exit
hdc: ide_intr: huh? expected NULL handler on exit
Buffer I/O error on device hdc, logical block 156349
Shadow passwords are now on.
Generating locales... en_US.UTF-8... up-to-date
Generation complete.
md5sum: /etc/X11/xorg.conf: No such file or directory
 * Preparing restricted drivers...
 * Starting basic networking...
 * Starting kernel event manager...
 * Loading hardware drivers...
 * Starting PCMCIA services...
 * PCMCIA not present.
 * Loading manual drivers...
mount: Function not implemented
 * Starting RAID devices...  <snip, couldn't keep up>

The first 13 lines creep along (each line takes ~10 seconds to display),
but the rest of the boot process continues at a fairly normal pace.

3. Eventually, the boot "finishes" and the screen goes blank. I hear the
bassline of the GDM login screen, but there's no image. My monitor's
indicator light blinks, and I tried turning it on and off, and hitting
Auto... nothing. I can Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to a prompt, and perform some
basic commands. Networking (and obviously sound) work just fine.
"startx" takes me right back to a blank screen. Starting in safe
graphics mode yielded the exact same result. I checked
/var/log/Xorg.0.log for anything abnormal, and there were a few messages
about the 200-some Mhz and 150-some MHz being higher than acceptable,
which was 140 MHz. Sorry if the numbers are off.

Specs:
AMD Athlon 2400+
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe
nVidia GeForce FX 5200
Samsung TS-H552U DVD-RW/CD-RW Drive

-- 
Dapper Beta: Boot process stalls on "Mounting root filesystem..."
https://launchpad.net/bugs/36667