[xubuntu-users] harddisk failure, or Xubuntu refuses to load

[Liviu Andronic]

On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 1:59 PM, Joshua O'Leary
<joshua.oleary at btinternet.com> wrote:
> If you change the hard disk operating mode in the BIOS (e.g. ahci, ide etc.)
> does it still have the same errors? Not all hard disks support advanced
> features.
>
To my utter surprise, this seems to have done the trick.

I accessed the BIOS and modified the disk operating mode from
'enhanced' to 'compatible', whatever that means. Now Xubuntu boots
quickly, as expected. I checked 'dmesg' and it's clean (there are no
relevant 'error' or 'sector' messages). All in all looks great!
Thanks!

The only issue that I notice is that 'xfce4-notes' refuses to start.
CPU goes to 50% (2 cores). I'm not sure why this happens, especially
since dmesg doesn't complain. But this is part of a bigger worry: As
much as I'm happy that the system boots up gracefully again, I'd like
to perform an audit to see if the disk is damaged and / or needs
changed. Any suggestions on this point?

Regards
Liviu