Ubuntu 12.04 boots, but is 100% unusable

Asked by G Thompson

Hi,

I am a novice Ubuntu user. I have been using it for about six months with no problem. Recently after installing recommended updates, when I boot into Ubuntu, it loads my desktop and it looks mostly normal, but nothing is clickable. The menu bar on top of the screen does not show the time or wi-fi icons, etc., and nothing is operational.

My two guesses are either the update somehow messed it up, or that my Ubuntu partition got filled up (I never got a warning).

Is there any way to fix this without reinstalling? And is there any way to save my data before reinstalling? I cannot see the Ubuntu partition on my hard disk when I boot into Windows.

Thanks, your help is much appreciated.

GT

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Jeet (gour-jitendrasingh) said :
#1

ok One by one :::

1. Ubuntu partition is hidden in Windows (Expected)

2. you do not need to reinstall (and if you ever want to do this please always backup your important data)

3. you can check disk space by this command in terminal ( df -h)

4. quick solution to this problem is

CTRL+ALT+T (will open terminal )
try unity restart it should help (or unity --reset)

Thanks
~jeet

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N1ck 7h0m4d4k15 (nicktux) said :
#2

What installation is that ? wubi.exe ? did you installed Ubuntu from within Windows ?

Try to boot from an older kernel.. (Previous Linux Versions) and see if this will restore your system's functionality.

Thanks

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#3

Tried the Unity2D session (selectable at the login screen)?

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G Thompson (purplishwords) said :
#4

How do you boot from an older kernel?

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N1ck 7h0m4d4k15 (nicktux) said :
#5

You will see an entry such as
"Previous Linux Versions" click there and you will see an older version of kernel.

Thanks

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