Ubuntu

Having trouble booting into Ubuntu on HyperV

Asked by tearsforhari

Help!! The /boot directory was full and had a lot of duplicate files from different dates, some I thought were unnecessary headers of updates. However, one series of files was called vmlinuz-3.2.0-29-generic. I moved all the files to /obsolete_files. I rebooted after having trouble upgrading packages (I think this is a second problem with this machine). I now get the following prompt.
grub rescue>

Is there a way to access the directory system so that I can move those files back?

grub rescue>ls
(hd0) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos1) (fd0)

It doesn't under boot, or insmod. I can set prefixes. Am I doomed?

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

What is the output of:

lsb_release -a; uname -a; dpkg -l | grep linux-image | grep -v header | awk {'print $1'}

Thanks

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tearsforhari (tearsforhari) said : 		#2

I can only access the grub rescue prompt. It doesn't understand lsb_release. I am running Ubuntu 12.04.5.

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Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#3

Do you have an Ubuntu installation DVD available, or an USB stick with an Ubuntu installation kit? Then you can boot into a live system with that device (in the "try Ubuntu without installing" mode), mount your hard disk partition and move the files back.

By the way: manually deleting files from the /boot directory was the wrong approach. You should have uninstalled obsolete kernel packages with the standard package management tools.

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tearsforhari (tearsforhari) said : 		#4

Agreed. My mistake. In any case, the VM is not worth saving. It is running via Hyper V. I attached the bad VM to a good VM running Ubuntu. I saw with the fdisk -l command: sda1-5, sdb1-3, and sdc1 and tried to mount each one of them. But I could not see files anywhere. Unless you have a suggestion, I will abandon this one and setup another VM to do the task that this one has been doing?

Could you also answer my question of:

1. Why might the /boot directory have been completely filled with obsolete kernel packages? Could the install been setup so that the kernel packages automatically update? We need to resolve this problem for future installs and other existing VMs.

2. If the /boot partition was at 100% capacity, would that have prevented cron jobs from performing?

Can you help with this problem?

Provide an answer of your own, or ask tearsforhari for more information if necessary.

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