LMDE will not boot from HDD, USB, CD

[lm4td]

After "Waiting for dev to be fully populated", I get errors like:

Module unix not found in modles.dep
Module unknown not found in modles.dep
Module swap not found in modles.dep

... killing '/sbin/modprobe -b... acpi PNP0400
... killing '/sbin/modprobe -b... pcspkr
... killing '/sbin/modprobe -b... LNXCPU

... 7:0:0:0 [sdc] no caching mode present

Sorry if these errors are not 100% verbose or complete but I have no way of copying all of them... and they cycle on the screen indefinitely.

The other day I reset the CMOS by putting a flat head screwdriver on the tips of the 2 pins and I saw a little shock between the pins. The computer was unplugged at the time. Was this the dreaded "static shock"?

Thanks for reading.

[lm4td]

I took out the battery to reset the CMOS again - the first time I didn't do it right. This time, when I put the battery back in, it said POST error (of course, because I cleared the CMOS) so I chose Default settings.

The OS loads now. Everything seems OK. (crossing fingers) CDs do not mount, but I can live with that. It's probably has to do with the fact that the CD drive was $4.