Need help trouble-shooting boot mess.

[thomas]

Karl F. Larsen wrote:
> David Armour wrote:
>   
>> Hello,
>>
>> Jaunty boots, but....
>>
>> ...the boot up screen where you use the arrow keys to select 
>> 'recovery' mode doesn't produce any response to key pressing! Booting
>> progresses normally otherwise, and once I've logged in
>> everything looks and acts much as it has for a number of years now...[1]
>>
>> I'm concerned that something has majorly borked my computer boot se-
>> quence, but that since the operating system's robustness successfully masks
>> the underlying borkiness, I've been shielded from any meaningful incon-
>> veniences. In the spirit of 'what have I got to lose', I've considered upgra-
>> ding from Jaunty to Karmic, despite some of the usual scary stories, but 
>> I worry that doing that over top of the borkiness will just cause it to per-
>> sist.
>>
>> I've been meaning to ask about this here for a while now, because I can't
>> seem to learn much from Google. As always, any ideas welcome. TIA.
>>
>> Sunday, November15 '09  3:59pm: 
>>
>> [1] A few notable exceptions: 
>> 	bluetooth file transfers stopped working back in Intrepid in Oct; 
>> 	CUPS no longer 'sees' the HP LaserJet it's been communicating 
>> 		with successfully for several years ... and which was the 
>> 		original reason I switched from BSD to Ubuntu; 
>> 	terminal displays .bashrc lines that reference "unexpected EOF"
>> 	workspace switcher's names don't persist across re-boots; 
>> 	
>>
>>
>>     
> 	It sounds like you might have a computer problem. Might be 
> your hard drive is failing. Tell us about your computer. How 
> old? I ask this because I'm using Jaunty and have just on bug 
> reported on it. Otherwise it is perfect at the moment.
>
> 73 Karl
Is it possible to use an external disk drive to copy the content of
my hard drive the same way that it is done in Windows? I think
that my problem might be hardware (submitted a couple of e/m
notes on this) too.

Strange, if hardware, the problems only exist when I am using
the 9.10 Ubuntu. When I used the "try out" version of Ubuntu 9.04
there are no problems.

Oh yes, my two problems are screen blinking (fickling) and the
system lockup with everything on the screen becoming weird and
then going away. Then I can only turn the computer off. When I
turn it on I get this message:

"Reboot and select Proper boot device - or insert boot media and
press any key".

Thomas