Ubuntu

ubuntu won't boot

Asked by allan white

yesterday Firefox would not start up and I followed some instructions I found on the net and got it working. When I did that it ran through a lot of instructions in the Terminal. I do not understand the terminal but it did most of this automatically and now this morning it will not start.

When I try it shows the round icon on the screen and then flashes on some text and disappears before I have a chance to read it. Then the screen goes blank and just sits there.

I started it off the Ubuntu 9.10 CD but it does not say anything about repairing the OS. I don't want to install it again because it will probably format the drive. It is an IDE hard drive and is the only one.

I have two parts to my question, how do I get into the bios and what do I do to make it start again. It looks like it has damaged the boot files. Please dont ask me to use the terminal. Everytime I try to use it, it does not work.

Allan

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subliminalfix (subliminalfix) said : 		#1

can you recall the definition that you used in the terminal application??

where is the error occuring at login,or in opening firefox?

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subliminalfix (subliminalfix) said : 		#2

if your speaking about the general bios to your computer you would have to use the f2 f8 f10 f12 or esc key at the start up by holding down or pressing repeatedly this will bypass the loading of your installer and go ino the sub-routine

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allan white (mukiduk) said : 		#3

Sorry, I cannot remember. After I got firefox working and found I could get onto the net, I put a music CD in the drive and found it would not play, so I was searching the "ubuntu documentation" site and I think I tried to install a driver for my sound device. I got a message that it was not activated so I clicked on that tab and I think that is when it started to run the terminal automatically.

This morning I do not see any error at login. It just goes blank.

I just tried to start it again. After showing the icon on the desktop it says "grub loading' and seems to be starting up but then it shows a blinking curser in the top left hand corner and then the screen goes black and after a while the screen lights up and just sits there. No further activity.

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Jarige (jarikvh) said : 		#4

With little information, we can give you little help.

What you might want to try is reinstalling grub.
Get your LiveCD and boot into it. Then go to Applications -> accessories -> Terminal.
Sorry, but the terminal is the only way of doing this.

First, make sure where Ubuntu is installed. If it is the only OS on the harddrive, then it is installed in /dev/sda1 (which is the first partition on the first drive)
It could be different! You can check where Ubuntu is installed by going to System -> Administration -> GParted and look for your drives there.

Remember where you installed Ubuntu. I'm going to assume you installed it in /dev/sda1, so replace /dev/sda1 for the location you installed Ubuntu!

Type this exact thing:
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

And then this:
sudo grub-install /dev/sda --root-directory=/dev/sda

At that point, grub will be installed again.
Now you should update the menu:

sudo update-grub

If things go wrong like this again, repeat these steps. Safe these steps on a different computer, in some textfile. I had this problem before, and I think it is caused by some bug in grub or some drivers. In other words; this might happen again! In 14 days from now (April 29) is the release date of Ubuntu 10.04, which will probably fix this bug. I recommend you to update to 10.04 stay on 10.04 for about 2.5 years. After that, I think you'll have enough experience with Ubuntu to decide what to do.
Ubuntu 10.04 is an LTS (Long Term Support) release, which only comes in two years. So basically, the next LTS will come out in 2012, and will have the number 12.04. An LTS release gets security patches for a longer time, and generally has less bugs. But you'll have less up to date versions of programs. Firefox for instance will not be updated when a new version comes out, only the security patches will be released.

Good luck

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