[mdlug] Linux box won't boot

[David Lee Lambert]

I have an old (12 to 14 years?) Compaq desktop (tower) repurposed as a
server.  It has been running Debian 6 "squeeze", I tried upgrading to
Debian 7 "wheezy" tonight.  Unfortunately, now it won't boot.

The system has about 768 MB RAM, two IDE hard-drives configured with LVM
accross them, IDE CDROM (writer), built-in USB 1.1, add-in USB 2.0 PCI card
(only thing connected right now is an HP DeskJet printer), add-in PCI
Ethernet, add-in PCI VGA (no on-board VGA), connected to an LCD monitor.

So the upgrade mostly went OK, I was able to reboot once, but there were
still some unconfigured packages: the "dovecot" family and "iscsitarget".
"dovecot" may be because of a config-file change, but "iscsitarget" depends
on a kernel module.  I installed some kernel source and rebooted again.

Now when I turn the power on, the screen goes backlit but black. After
about 20 seconds, it flashes briefly red "COMPAQ" on a green background,
then shows the GRUB boot menu.  If I push any key on the keyboard, it
immediately goes backlit but black again, and nothing else happens.  The
fan is running. Num Lock is lit but unresponsive, no HDD activity.  If I
hit the power button, it turns off immediately.

Stranger still,  if I try to boot from a Linux CD (tried Ubuntu J and
Ubunutu 5.10 so far), I get similar behavior.  Screen is black but blacklit
for about thirty seconds after power-on.  I push any key on the keyboard,
it flashes back to that state,  and no HDD activity.

Could the OS upgrade have overwritten the MBR, with dire consequences?
Could a PAE kernel have triggered a BIOS bug?  Or am I just unlucky, and
some hardware failed today?

Suggestions for how to proceed?


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