Radomir, thank you so much for your patience and help! I ran "fsck" while logged in as root. It said: fsck 1.40.2... e2fsck 1.40.2... /dev/sda1: clean, 102623/694880 files, 494744/1389614 blocks" Then I ran "fsck -c" and it said "Checking for bad blocks (read-only test)" and had numbers counting. Then it started displaying a lot of cryptic information, the only lines of which I recognized were several "...Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block...." Then it said "done". Then "Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks and sizes Pass 2: chekcing directory structure Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity Pass 4: Checking reference counts Pass 5: Checking group summary information Free blocks count wrong for group #23 (25450, counted=25448). Fix?" I answered "yes" to that question, and 3 more of similar nature. Then it said: "/dev/sda1: *******FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED****** /dev/sda1: ******* REBOOT LINUX ************ /dev/sda1: 102625/694880 files (0.6% non-contiguous), 494771/1389614 blocks" I wasn't sure if that meant it's repaired or not, so I again tried "apt-get install linux-686" and received messages about it not being able to write to files. So I ran "mount / -o rw, remount" and the apt-get again, and it displayed a few lines, at the end of which it said "E: Couldn't find package linux-686" I Googled and found "aptitude install linux-686" and ran that; it seemed to do more stuff, but still couldn't find the package. So I guess the good news is that my system seems to be repaired/working and now I just have to figure out how to get the 686 kernel (assuming that will help my slow performance). <div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Tue, Nov 27, 2007 at 10:45:36AM -0800: > > Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 09:12:40PM -0800: > > > install a kernel for a 686. The documentation said to type "sudo > > > apt-get install linux-686" from the command line. I was logged in as > > > root, so I typed the above w/out "sudo". I got a bunch of errors, all > > > of which contained the text "Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical > > > block". > > > > I don't want to worry you, but these kinds of errors usually mean > > a hardware failure of the sda1 disk (probably a hard disk in this case). > > > > Try booting in the recovery mode and running fsck on that disk, possibly > > with -c option to check for bad blocks. > I typed "fsck"  into the command line and hit return, and got the following: > > "fsck 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007) > e2fsck 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007) > /dev/sda1 is mounted. > WARNING! Running e2fsck on a mounted filesystem may cause SEVER filesystem > damage. Do you want to continue?" > That sounded scary so I said "no". Should I say "yes" to that question? Yes, it's normal, forgot to tell you about it. Type 'mount' to make sure the partition is mounted read-only (it should be in the recovery mode, but better safe than sorry). If it is not, type:  mount / -o ro,remount this should remount it in read-only mode, making sure that the filesystem is not corrupted during checking. An alternative would be booting from a livecd, then the system is not mounted, but with your specs this might be slow. So, make sure it's read only and answer 'yes' to that question. > If my disk is bad, did I ruin it by changing from Windows to Linux? That's not possible, it's a physical fault. > Can > damage like that be caused by the disk running for too long? (It was on for > almost a day while I was trying different install methods.) Only if there is something wrong with cooling or you kept it in posistion where proper cooling was not possible. > I didn't have > too many problems w/ XP on it, but maybe they were there and I didn't know > about it until now. If the disk is bad, how was Linux able to be installed > at all? We are not sure if it's bad. That's the usual reason for these errors, but there can be other -- that's why you're running a disk check. Also, if only some parts of the disk are bad, fsck can mark them as such and the system will just not use them for storing data. -- Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski <<a href="http://sheep.art.pl" target="_blank">http://sheep.art.pl</a>> ()  ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail /\  <<a href="http://www.asciiribbon.org" target="_blank">www.asciiribbon.org</a>> - against proprietary attachments</blockquote></div>