I had a drive die on my too, thankfully I didn't have all the problems you did. Sorry lass. And data retrieval was a snap. Be happy, you're running linux and not windows, data retrieval would be a nightmare. Assuming it was possible. I wish I could help, I have some spare healthy HDs I could have lent you. If you're in the US, take advantage of the memorial day sales coming up. Also, don't buy any HD with a less than 5 year warranty. They are more likely to fail within the first 90 days of operation (cheaper - none mission critical, consumer level construction). Seagates, Western Digitals and Maxtor (Seagate) are my favs. I hope all goes well. Kate On Saturday 08 October 2011, Lisi wrote: > On Thursday 06 October 2011 22:23:11 Lisi wrote: > > Bonkers is the best description I can come up with. Applications that > > were working fine are suddenly not. (In particular Konqueror, but not > > only Konqeror.) Settings change randomly. The latest, a few minutes > > ago, was my desktop settings, which have disappeared and the same random > > KDE one "set up" for all the desktops (4 - and until just now they all > > had different backgrounds). When I went to check what "configure > > desktop" showed, I found that my screensaver had been turned off. > > I ran memtest overnight from Thursday to Friday. No errors. It was only 6 > passes, so is not definitive, but it is a good indication that the memory > is OK. > > I have looked at the log as suggested by Nik. I can see nothing, but then > I don't know what I am looking for. > > And last night I ran (from a Live CD, so outside the system): first > smartctl, which found some errors, and then badblocks, which didn't. > > So I imagine that I should start looking for a new hard drive? :-( I do > worry a bit in case it is something more major. And I may change the CMOS > battery first. > > smartctl is obviously warning me: the drive is on its way out, so do > something about it. I shall try to limp to next Tuesday, since it will > mean a lot of sorting out. (Acquire the HDD, install Squeeze/Trinity, try > to use my present /home and all the data on it etc.) > > That would also, of course, sort out the software. Provided that I don't > go and restore some faulty configurations. I shall anyhow try the viable > part of Kate's suggestion. Kate - I realised that the fault is too > intermittent to show up in a hurry. We are talking days, not hours. And > I, as me, need to access my data etc. > > I am still open to suggestions!! > > Thanks all for your invaluable help. > > Lisi > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: > trinity-users-unsubscribe@... For additional > commands, e-mail: trinity-users-help@... Read list > messsages on the Web archive: http://trinity-users.pearsoncomputing.net/ > Please remember not to top-post: > http://trinity.pearsoncomputing.net/mailing_lists/#top-posting