Ubuntu

Ubuntu recovery

Asked by Barry Martin

First my PC specs. It is a 64-bit desktop PC with a 1 TB HDD and 8 GB RAM. It has Radeon HD R7 Graphics. I have dual boot Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu 16.04.

After reading on line about ways to clean up Ubuntu, I thought I should install and run FSlist Janitor. I selected 'remove duplicates' in Janitor, and deleted everything that showed in the display window.

The next time I booted up my computer and selected Ubuntu from the GRUB menu, all I got was my desktop wallpaper, no launchbar or menu bar etc. Since then I have found that I can only get into Ubuntu by selecting dpkg repair from the 'recovery mode' option of GRUB.

I have tried to resolve my problems by reinstalling Ubuntu from an installation DVD. After 'install Ubuntu' all I got was a screenful of the Ubuntu wallpaper. I read about the nomodeset option, tried that ... it led to some some on screen messages, the only one of which I caught was 'no ums support radeon module.' Then a blank screen.

I hope somebody has some suggestions!

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

If you log in as guest is the system OK?

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Barry Martin (barry-martin) said : 		#2

I clicked on 'Guest Session' and the screen went blank. I could only get out of it by pressing the power button.

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Barry Martin (barry-martin) said : 		#3

I have done an uninstallation and reinstallation and problems are now resolved. The GRUB menu post installation was missing, but reappeared when I restored all my files from backup.

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Barry Martin (barry-martin) said : 		#4

Sorry my problem still not (fully) solved. Yes I did have my GRUB menu, but only momentarily. It was there immediately after reintroducing backed up files, but on subsequent boot ups was not there! I went through boot repair procedure and got this error message:
"Open a terminal and enter the following commands"
sudo chroot "/mnt/boot-sav/sda6" dpkg -configure -a
sudo chroot "/mnt/boot-sav/sda6" apt-get install -fy
sudo chroot "/mnt/boot-sav/sda6" apt-get purge -y -force-yes grub*-common shim-signed linux-signed*

I entered the first of above commands (my Ubuntu is actually on sdb6, so I entered sdb6 rather than sda6), got the following message:
"cannot change root directory to /mnt/boot-sav/sdb6: no such file or directory"
I then checked File Manager and found that directory "mnt" is empty.
What do I do next?

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Barry Martin (barry-martin) said : 		#5

I have reread question / answer 403804 ... looking at UEFI setup I see the following boot options:

SATA: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GHZ4NSBO
UEFI: Built in EFI Shell
AHCI PO: ST1000DM003-1CHIGZ
UEFI: Seagate Backup + Desk 0342
Disabled

No Windows Boot Manager

Boot Information Summary can be viewed here: http://paste.ubuntu.com/p/wPrnwFbsHJ/

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Barry Martin (barry-martin) said : 		#6

I followed instructions contained in: https://howtoubuntu.org/how-to-repair-restore-reinstall-grub-2-with-a-ubuntu-live-cd. This successfully restored the GRUB menu.