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Stuck on Dell Logo Optiplex 790 SFF
I have just recently installed linux on my optiplex 790 and everything was working just fine. Today I boot it to find that it gets stuck at the end of the loading bar and doesnt boot. I cannot get into the one time boot menu either as it just is stuck on prepairing. Is there any way to fix this without modifying the hardware? I have a graphics card and 2 drives in it.
stefluid7
11 Posts
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June 5th, 2021 11:00
Sorry if I was not clear enough, I meant the dell bios loading bar when it first launches.
bj11213
77 Posts
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June 5th, 2021 11:00
It would help if we knew which variant of linux you're using ... the three or four I use don't have a "loading bar"
I _suspect_ (though on the grounds of almost no evidence) that you've run an update which upgraded the kernel & something has gone wrong with the boot partition ... perhaps it ran out of space & the update didn't quite finish. In which case it may or may not be possible to repair grub after booting from a "live" installation DVD / flash drive.
For future reference:
(1) it is wise to make a separate partition for the boot filesystem (mounted as /boot) - 1 GB should be big enough
(2) it is wise to backup the boot partition before running updates involving the kernel or boot loader (grub = GRand Unified Bootloader) - use block mode (dd) since that will repair however badly the patition gets mangled
(3) I find it useful to install two copies of linux - one with minimal applications which is never upgraded - this saves me looking for installation / repair media if ever things go wrong (which is rare these days, but still, 20 GB is hardly noticed in these days of terabyte disc capacities & since linux will happily boot from a logical partition there's no need to worry about partition counts, even on discs still using DOS master boot record format)
stefluid7
11 Posts
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June 5th, 2021 11:00
I am on manjaro arch but I dont suspect that it is because of linux. I will disconnect the drive and see what happens.
bj11213
77 Posts
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June 5th, 2021 12:00
That sort of confirms my diagnosis of damaged boot partition (grub or its configuration file damaged, kernel not in the place it expects to be found)
Do you get the grub menu / splash screen displayed?
stefluid7
11 Posts
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June 5th, 2021 12:00
No it is still stuck on the bios even after disconnecting the drive
bradthetechnut
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June 6th, 2021 18:00
Sometimes this advice can be a bit common, but can often be the first thing to check. Replace the size 2032 CMOS battery if it hasn't been done in the last 5 years. A low battery will cause seemingly unrelated bizarre problems. Even if by chance it doesn't work, it's still cheap.
Are you able to access BIOS or the Boot Menu? If not, this signals a bigger problem. Remember not to wait for a keyboard light or Dell logo before hitting F2 or F12. Do 1 or both drives show in the Boot Menu?
And one more... Is your 2nd drive storage or boot?