dmesg not working on new system

[Chris Maness]

On Mon, 5 Jun 2006, Lowell Gilbert wrote:

> Greg Barniskis <nalists at scls.lib.wi.us> writes:
>
>> Chris Maness wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, 5 Jun 2006, Greg Barniskis wrote:
>>>
>>>> Chris Maness wrote:
>>>>> I just installed 6.1 and upgraded to RELEASE-p1.  The command
>>>>> dmesg is not displaying any kernel messages, any suggestions?
>>>>
>>>> Suggests all is well?
>>>>
>>>> dmesg outputs stuff from the current system message buffer, which
>>>> contains your boot messages right after booting but those can get
>>>> flushed over time. Boot messages are saved to a file though, for
>>>> reference.
>>>>
>>>> more /var/run/dmesg.boot
>>>>
>>
>>>
>>> I just thought it was strange because every other system I have it
>>> at least displays dmesg.boot if there is no other messages.  Is this
>>> new behavior for 6.1?
>>
>> Not new behavior. A dmesg on any of my running systems (4.x, 5.x)
>> returns nothing after a time. You were just catching it before the
>> buffer was flushed. I don't know what triggers that, and it is
>> possible that the trigger/timing of it may have changed in 6.x (and as
>> always, YMMV).
>
> Interesting.  Does "dmesg -a" show anything different?
>
Yes, it does, but why would it not show anything without the flag right 
after a reboot?  Wierd.  I almost suspect hard drive issues.