I've been trying all day to get this to work but I just can't seem to nail it.

I'm using an onboard VIA VT82C686 AC97 Audio controller and have no idea how to get it working. I've tried following the instructions here but I'm still relatively new to linux and have no idea what to do next.

Mod note: modified URL tag to simplify its display.

Welcome to LQ!

Welcome to LQ!

What is your Linux distribution?

In a terminal (konsole will work) as a normal user issue "lsmod | grep -i snd" and post the output.

You might also need to issue "alsamixer" as user and unmute and turn up the sliders, then issue "alsactl store" as root to save settings over reboots.

I followed your instructions but after I rebooted it gives me this "/:UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY." and asks me for the root passward for maintenance.

It sounds like your hard drive has bad sectors. Put that error message into Google <Linux> and read some of the results.

The commands I gave you have absolutely nothing to do with this message. It was issued because the program "fsck" (filesystem checker) was automatically run when you rebooted, and it found inconsistencies in data on your disk(s).

For the sound issues, did you continue to boot and do you have sound?

For the bad hard drive, what filesystem(s) are you running?

There are two (at least) ways to check your filesystem(s). With a Linux distribution, you can use the one appropriate to your filesystem(s). In a terminal issue "man fsck" and read to find out more.

If you know the manufacturer of your hard drive, you can get a utility from their site which will check your drive; and if it's in warranty, will usually issue you a RMA number and instructions if it finds bad sectors on the disk. These utilites typically come in floppy and/or CD .iso image files. You download them and prepare the appropriate medium, then boot your computer with it and follow the onscreen instructions.

If you need more help checking your disk(s), post back the make and model; or the output of "df -h" and "fdisk -l" for our perusal.

I'm not exactly sure how to get it to continue booting so I wasn't able to find out if the sound was working.

The hard drive is an 80gb Samsung SV8004H, Its about 6-7 years old and I doubt its still under warranty.

df -h gives me
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1 6.5G 3.8G 2.4G 62% /
devpts 10M 76K 10M 1% /dev/pts
tmpfs 10M 76K 10M 1% /dev

fdisk -l gives me
Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80060424192 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectores/track, 9733 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 851 6835626 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 852 9733 71344665 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 852 1028 1421721 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda6 1029 9733 69922881 83 Linux

Can you just hit Enter to continue booting?

If not, give the root password and follow the instructions.

I would recommend that you get Seagate's SeaTools and use it. Earlier this year I used that to check a customer's Samsung hard drive after the Samsung utility failed to work at all. The Desktop edition will be fine for your needs. If you can burn an .iso image to CD, that medium runs faster than a floppy.

What is on this partition?
/dev/hda6 1029 9733 69922881 83 Linux
And why didn't it show up in "df -h"?

It looks as if you don't have a separate /home partition. I also should have asked for the output of "mount" so we can see your filesystems.

Sometime really soon you need to backup any valuable data on that drive, also.

Got it to boot and sound is working perfectly (sounds much clearer than my windows computer too!)

Do you have any suggestions for backing up my hard drive?

What is on /dev/hda6 ?

As for backing it up, what do you have available?

Do you have a fileserver? A Samba share somewhere? DVD or CD burner?

And where is your important data? Just under /home ? If the drive failed next reboot, what could you not live without? Would you mind reinstalling the OS(es), and reconfiguring?

It will also matter where the bad blocks are located.