It is running very slow, when I open a folder or file it always goes to recovery, and all my desktop icons have vanished ( had to pop out switched it all off normally)- I tried to turn it back on, it took ages to come on and all the icons have vanished! How do I get them back? It’s annoying having to go into the options all the time.I had a look in preferences but couldn’t see anything. Why is it running slow? This is Linux Peppermint- it used to be like lightning!
Whilst basic, have you had a look in task manager to see if anything is eating up your CPU or ram?
Having a bit of trouble understanding the problem here … what do you mean by “when I open a folder or file it always goes to recovery” ?
Try running:
sudo touch /forcefsck
then rebooting … that should tell the system to run a file system check on next bootup.
[EDIT]
If it’s still doing it, run:
top
then hit Ctrl+C to stop top from running … and post what’s in the terminal.
–
My guess is that the OP is referring to Libra Office, occasionally that does "recover"documents.
Ahh … 
Yes exactly! It is acting normally now and the icons reappeared when I switched it on this morning. Odd!
Maybe you reached the “Maximum mount count” where the system will run a file system check at next boot.
FYI …
On Ext(n) file systems Linux runs a file system check when the “Mount count” reaches the “Maximum mount count” value.
You can see those values as they currently stand with
sudo dumpe2fs -h /dev/sdXY
where XY is the drive/partition designation
You should get a return like:-
mark@AA1-Blue ~ $ sudo dumpe2fs -h /dev/sda1[sudo] password for mark: dumpe2fs 1.42.5 (29-Jul-2012) Filesystem volume name: Last mounted on: Filesystem UUID: 8a924265-8abb-453f-a07f-034794120322 Filesystem magic number: 0xEF53 Filesystem revision #: 1 (dynamic) Filesystem features: ext_attr filetype sparse_super Default mount options: (none) Filesystem state: not clean Errors behavior: Continue Filesystem OS type: Linux Inode count: 1690624 Block count: 3377408 Reserved block count: 168870 Free blocks: 1192238 Free inodes: 1379899 First block: 0 Block size: 4096 Fragment size: 4096 Blocks per group: 32768 Fragments per group: 32768 Inodes per group: 16256 Inode blocks per group: 508 Last mount time: Mon Sep 30 10:39:26 2013 Last write time: Tue Oct 1 01:03:09 2013 [b]Mount count: 1 Maximum mount count: 30[/b] [b]Last checked: Tue Oct 1 01:02:30 2013[/b] Check interval: 0 () Reserved blocks uid: 0 (user root) Reserved blocks gid: 0 (group root) First inode: 11 Inode size: 128
You can also see when the last file system check was run … amongst other info.
Yeah…bit over my head that but will try that sudo thing!
udo dumpe2fs -h /dev/sdXY
[sudo] password for melissa:
dumpe2fs 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
dumpe2fs: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/sdXY
Couldn’t find valid filesystem superblock.
No, you need to replace the XY in that command with whatever the drive/partition designation is.
Unless this is a dual boot system, it’s “probably”:
sudo dumpe2fs -h /dev/sda1
But to tell the truth, if it’s working this isn’t important … it was just for info, in case you were interested 
sudo dumpe2fs -h /dev/sda1
[sudo] password for melissa:
dumpe2fs 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
Filesystem volume name:
Last mounted on: /
Filesystem UUID: c3e9e140-52b4-47c1-8290-cfb53799557b
Filesystem magic number: 0xEF53
Filesystem revision #: 1 (dynamic)
Filesystem features: has_journal ext_attr resize_inode dir_index filetype needs_recovery extent flex_bg sparse_super large_file huge_file uninit_bg dir_nlink extra_isize
Filesystem flags: signed_directory_hash
Default mount options: user_xattr acl
Filesystem state: clean
Errors behavior: Continue
Filesystem OS type: Linux
Inode count: 2400256
Block count: 9590272
Reserved block count: 479513
Free blocks: 8428919
Free inodes: 2190738
First block: 0
Block size: 4096
Fragment size: 4096
Reserved GDT blocks: 1021
Blocks per group: 32768
Fragments per group: 32768
Inodes per group: 8192
Inode blocks per group: 512
Flex block group size: 16
Filesystem created: Mon Aug 19 02:46:10 2013
Last mount time: Tue Oct 1 15:03:05 2013
Last write time: Mon Aug 19 03:10:27 2013
Mount count: 117
Maximum mount count: -1
Last checked: Mon Aug 19 02:46:10 2013
Check interval: 0 ()
Lifetime writes: 61 GB
Reserved blocks uid: 0 (user root)
Reserved blocks gid: 0 (group root)
First inode: 11
Inode size: 256
Required extra isize: 28
Desired extra isize: 28
Journal inode: 8
First orphan inode: 531864
Default directory hash: half_md4
Directory Hash Seed: d169c487-e4dc-410f-9a88-af9587d48969
Journal backup: inode blocks
Journal features: journal_incompat_revoke
Journal size: 128M
Journal length: 32768
Journal sequence: 0x0002e316
Journal start: 23353
melissa@melissa-HP-Compaq-nx6325-RH628ES-ABU ~ $
It does keep running slow and stalling. Maybe it is reminiscing about the times it was a Windows XP laptop! Think I will use my Mint Dell netbook tomorrow- despite its smaller screen it is so much better- fast, never stalls. This machine is quite old.
Oddly, your root partition is set to NEVER automatically run an fsck
Maximum mount count: -1
Have you got a LiveCD/LiveUSB, so we can manually run a forced fsck whilst booted to it ?
I’ve never run Peppermint.
But all the drives on my computer also had their Maximum Mounts set to -1.
So the question is - what is doing this and why?
I’m on Peppermint 4 and it too is set to -1
Oh crap, what have I started here
I can tell you how to change it, but before I do, it may be a good idea to know which distro’s and file systems everyone’s using.
Me -
Peppermint 4
Ext2
Maximum mount count: 30
sudo blkid
will give you your filesystem type
I’m guessing the majority of you will be using Ext4 … maybe they’ve changed something in the way it checks … more research necessary.
Just to see I put in your command and the following was the outcome:
[sudo] password for derek:
/dev/sda1: UUID=“C60004FF0004F867” TYPE=“ntfs”
/dev/sda5: UUID=“7e1e406a-d4e0-4230-8066-a36ef7a925b1” TYPE=“ext4”
/dev/sda6: UUID=“c5cab3df-37cf-4539-81a1-92a1ce514eee” TYPE=“swap”
Then checked out the maximum mount count and this also came up as -1
I am not experiencing any problems but thought the info might help to decide the cause of the problem.
I am using Peppermint4 64 bit dual boot with XP (though have never booted XP since started to use Peppermint 4)
Degsy
Is that the max mount count of sda5?
Yes the Max Mount Count was from sda/5.
Ok…I have to admit my knowledge of computing doesn’t stretch to this…not sure what you meant by root partition and live CD/USB. When you helped me download Peppermint 3 a couple months ago you gave me links and I did download the distro onto a USB then onto a CD to load it up into this laptop- is that what you mean? Tpo premept your question- yes still got them! Partition and fsck- hmmmmm…bit stumped there!
$ sudo blkid
[sudo] password for melissa:
/dev/sda1: UUID=“c3e9e140-52b4-47c1-8290-cfb53799557b” TYPE=“ext4”
/dev/sda5: UUID=“9db23236-8f7f-4d59-8e07-8f8e5d8df4c5” TYPE=“swap”
melissa@melissa-HP-Compaq-nx6325-RH628ES-ABU ~ $
Peppermint 3 32 bit.