Subj : Re: Fedora failure pattern To : comp.os.linux From : ibuprofin Date : Sun Aug 22 2004 06:18 pm In article , Bruce Coryell wrote: >I'm running Fedora Core 1 and have, several times, gotten this 1-2 >series of failures: First sendmail fails and hangs (the first failure), Let it set for five or six minutes. Does it come up then? At that point, it should give a hint as to what is wrong - a specific error message. For example, a _VERY_ common problem is sendmail being unable to figure out it's full hostname, and the timeout of several minutes is while it's waiting for an answer from the name servers. For that problem, make sure that the hostname in /etc/sysconfig/network is a full name (with dots), and that the full name is found in the /etc/hosts file. >then when I force a reboot, the boot fails at the point of >initializing the swap space (the second failure). Unless you are having hardware problems - no clue. I've never seen this kind of behaviour. >The only solution at this point is to reformat and reinstall >everything. This make any sense? Absolutely not. Figure out how to boot into rescue mode off the CD (I can't help there, I'm no longer using Red Hat), and see what the heck is going on. You are likely using a e3fs (*journaled) file system, so some of the e2fs tools won't work for you, but you could also get a copy of "Tom's Root n Boot" (tomsrtbt) from a sunsite mirror. It's a micro distribution that fits onto a single 3.5 inch floppy. ../system/recovery/ 2646086 Jun 6 2001 tomsrtbt-1.7.361.ElTorito.288.img.bz2 2170498 Jun 6 2001 tomsrtbt-1.7.361.dos.zip 1119 Jun 6 2001 tomsrtbt-1.7.361.lsm 1782218 Jun 6 2001 tomsrtbt-1.7.361.tar.gz The LSM is a text description, but you'd need _one_ of the other three, depending on how you plan to create the floppy (DOS, or *nix, or an ElTorito image). Old guy .