Serious crash after "lockfile-remove"

Hello.

I've installed Kubuntu 8.10 today and have been playing with it.
I put the drivers manager to download the ATI driver and for about 5 minutes it was stuck at 0%. So i thought it was bugged, and killed it.
Later, every apt-get was locked due to some /var/cache/something file. I was recieving a message like "cannot open lock in file /var/cache/..../".

So, as i was just playing with it anyway, i started looking for a command that would attempt to unlock that. So i started guessing commands like 'unlock' and something, and while guessing and (tab)ing in the terminal, i found this "lockfile-remove" and runned it with the path to that file.

Right after i runned it, my system crashed. So as it wouldnt answer to anything, i forced a shutdown by holding the power button.

However, it doesnt seem to "shutdown" anymore. The power led is always on.
Even worse, it doesnt seem to turn on anymore!
When i press it to turn on, the cooler starts running and some other leds like the volume control button led turn on. It wont ever change this status. Zero, nothing appears on the screen.
Then, while in this, if i hold the power button to shutdown, the cooler stops but the power leds are still on.

It wont help if i take out the power cable, as it still has plenty battery. I don't sense any burn smell. It doesn't get heat when i "turn it on". It is "turned off" now (with power leds on).

My only guesses are to take out the hard drive and try to rescue data with a hard drive case. That would void my warranty and i never opened a notebook before, i was looking to avoid that. Or maybe try to run it out of battery and check if the power led finally goes off or something. But that could take long, and doesnt feel to me as a solution.

Any guesses?
Thanks in advance!

edit: im obviously at other pc now.

 

Wow, that sounds like some serious issue...

Can't resist because you mentioned you have to wait until it runs out of battery - but the solution for cutting off power might be just removing the battery. It's at the back of your laptop, accessible from the bottom, and I'm sure you can take it out when pulling the correct lever. It also shouldn't hurt your notebook much, removing the HD when switched on would be a lot more critical

I'm sorry that I can't help you much, but I don't expect Linux to be able to mess up the BIOS. This just sounds like your notebook is caught in some sleep state it can't leave properly (as the state change is controlled by OS). If you cut off the power, you should at least get the POST on your next try...

 

Hi, thanks for the reply.

Isn't it dangerous to attempt to remove the battery with it "on"? Now that you talked about it, yeah it seemed a bit dumb i mentioned removing the hard drive but not the battery.

I will try to remove the battery if there's no risk to damage the notebook.

Thanks

Edit:



Ha, worked!

Just took the battery out, plugged it back after a second, and the leds were off. Pushed the power button and it's all good again.

Sorry for being blind to the obvious anyway, i was scared for a moment

Thanks, rep'd

 

Removing the battery does exactly the same thing to a notebook as a power cut to a desktop PC. Nothing really bad, except you have unsaved data.