Upgrade to 10.04 resulted in Kernel Panic on reboot

This is caused by a few things such as a kernel that didn't install properly, or a broken grub.

Check out this thread for some solutions:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=296809&highlight=kernel+panic

Follow through the ideas there, if you need more assistance post back all the details explaining what you did and what the result was. These details will be most essential to finding a fix.

Good luck.

Hi :)

When you boot-up the machine do you get a menu with various options for booting into Ubuntu?

The 2nd opton for Ubuntu should have "recovery mode" near the end of it's line. The 3rd option for Ubuntu should be a previous kernel. Can you boot up using one of the previous kernels? If so then try running updates again to see if the newer kernel gets reinstalled properly this time.

Going back to the 2nd or 4th options might be a good plan. Running through a few of the options in a "recovery mode" can help you clear some space on the hard-drive, fix broken packages and fsck check disk. Those 3 options might help a lot.

Do you have an Ubuntu Cd? or can you make one? It doesn't need to be the same version as the one on your hard-drive. Hopefully this will allow you to boot-up the machine using the option to "Try Ubuntu" instead of installing it. Here's a guide to help if that's tricky
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD

Once you get to an Ubuntu desktop please can you get to a command-line
Applications - Accessories - Terminal
and give us the output of this command

sudo fdisk -l

where "-l" is a lower-case "-L" and give us the output in here?
Please let us know how any of this goes. Don't worry if you don't get a chance to try everything here. Just let us know how it goes with what you do get a chance to try :)
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Thanks for your thoughts.
What happened is this:
I set up a machine with no operating system just a formatted hard disk. Put Ubuntu 8.4 in the cd drive and set it up. Working fine for my purpose - internet via Firefox and basic word processing. Decided to upgrade. opened the upgrade options window and it offered 10.04. Accepted selecting reboot after installing, and the download commenced. The installation commenced, and then the system attempted to reboot at the end of the installation. Got a couple of missing data messages followed by the kernel panic. Rebooted and simply got the kernel panic message - screen of death. cannot do anything.
Kind regards,
Mac

> To: <email address hidden>
> From: <email address hidden>
> Subject: Re: [Question #140476]: Upgrade to 10.04 resulted in Kernel Panic on reboot
> Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2011 11:23:28 +0000
>
> Your question #140476 on grub2 in ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+question/140476
>
> Tom proposed the following answer:
> Hi :)
>
> When you boot-up the machine do you get a menu with various options for
> booting into Ubuntu?
>
> The 2nd opton for Ubuntu should have "recovery mode" near the end of
> it's line. The 3rd option for Ubuntu should be a previous kernel. Can
> you boot up using one of the previous kernels? If so then try running
> updates again to see if the newer kernel gets reinstalled properly this
> time.
>
> Going back to the 2nd or 4th options might be a good plan. Running
> through a few of the options in a "recovery mode" can help you clear
> some space on the hard-drive, fix broken packages and fsck check disk.
> Those 3 options might help a lot.
>
> Do you have an Ubuntu Cd? or can you make one? It doesn't need to be the same version as the one on your hard-drive. Hopefully this will allow you to boot-up the machine using the option to "Try Ubuntu" instead of installing it. Here's a guide to help if that's tricky
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD
>
> Once you get to an Ubuntu desktop please can you get to a command-line
> Applications - Accessories - Terminal
> and give us the output of this command
>
> sudo fdisk -l
>
> where "-l" is a lower-case "-L" and give us the output in here?
> Please let us know how any of this goes. Don't worry if you don't get a chance to try everything here. Just let us know how it goes with what you do get a chance to try :)
> Good luck and regards from
> Tom :)
>
> --
> If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
> know that it is solved:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+question/140476/+confirm?answer_id=1
>
> If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to the
> following page to enter your feedback:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+question/140476
>
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.

You can reinstall Grub2 using following link:
   https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Reinstalling%20from%20LiveCD
There is a reasonable probability it will fix issue.

If it doesn't work, you could simply do a fresh install of 10.04.1, which is frequently the easiest solution.
If you have few date to recover from disk, think at this solution.

Hi :)

Ok, do you have an Ubuntu Cd or bootable Usb-stick? If so please let us know which release you have; 8.04, 10.04 or 10.10. Any of these should be able to help us get the system working again. Ideally the 8.04 or 10.04 would be best as they are LTS releases whereas 10.10 only has about 1 years worth of support left.

Whichever Ubuntu Cd you have (or the Cd of another distro) please try booting up from it
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD
Typically i tend to find i have to start booting the machine and then i can't get the Cd in the drive fast enough so i have to reboot the machine (CtrlAlt & Del usually does the trick).

If you don't have any Ubuntu Cd then could you make one on a different machine? or order an official one from Cannonical or somewhere via the Ubuntu website
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/desktop/get-ubuntu
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto

If 800Mb is too much to download and if you want to do some preparation before the official Cds arrive then the Cd of another distro would be helpful. If you don't have one then i would suggest sliTaz because it is only 30Mb which makes it much easier and faster to download and create a Cd of.
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slitaz
Their stable LiveCd version would be ideal.

Whichever Cd you boot up with please get to a command-line, with Ubuntu that is usually
Applications menu on the top taskbar - Accessories - Terminal
Other distros often have a similar route or an icon on their taskbar looking like a tele screen with a ">_". On the command-line please try

sudo fdisk -l

and let us know the first and last columns of the output it gives.

When you get an email from Launchpad please try using the link it gives so that you can post directly into the thread here. When you just "Reply to" it copies back a ton of stuff that we already have in the thread here and it all gets very confusing very quickly. Each forum works slightly differently so it's only by experience that we can find the nuances and hidden problems of each.

Many thanks, good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi again :)

I was hoping no-one would suggest a re-install at this stage. That is the way we are heading but first it would be nice to know what possible problems there might be and also what opportunities we might have for making the system more robust for next time.

The fdisk command would give us some idea of how many linux partitions you have on your hard-drive but you might already know if you have a separate /home partition? If you do then an install using the "Advanced Partitioning" option would let you avoid formatting the /home.

So, a few questions ...
1. Do you have a separate /home partition? (yes, no or "don't know" are good answers)
2. Do you have or can you borrow and external hard-drive to back-up your data from your /home?
3. Do you know if your hard-drive was/is half-full, nearly full, or just about empty?

I was still at the first step of finding out if you have an Ubuntu Cd and if you can use it to get a LiveCd session working. If you can do that then it gives us a lot more room to maneuverer, including showing you how to back-up properly if that is an option.

Regards from
Tom :)

@Tom.
Hello.
You are right, it will be nice if we had less issues with upgrade of one LTS to another one. But it needs more time that I can spend, as I'm trying to answer all Grub and Ubiquity questions.
For me it looks as if in grub.cfg file, the boot line with linux image name and partition name of file system are wrong.
As 8.04 is a Grub Legacy version, you have to check if PC still uses Grub Legacy or switched to Grub2.
You can use this procedure if you want to investigate:
----
provide data about boot configuration

There is a standard script provided to analyze boot configuration.

Could you download script at:

   http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

Then in a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) run command:

    sudo bash boot_info_script055.sh

This will produce a file named: RESULTS.txt

Paste content of this file in http://paste.ubuntu.com/ and provide in this thread the link to Web page.

Please don't post file directly in thread, else it will make thread difficult to read.

Delance

Ahah, i see your point. Grub2 can boot 8.04 just fine so your suggestion of just (re?)-installing grub2 might be enough to completely fix the issue. It might not but it is worth trying as it wont hurt

Ok, "sudo fdisk -l" would help us deal with the instructions on the page you posted before
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Reinstalling%20from%20LiveCD

Regards from
Tom :)

Hi again

Ok, it seems difficult for you to communicate with us so i will let you know the dangerous trick. Please try to take great care with this and back-up any data that is valuable to you, such things as family photos or stuff you couldn't reconstruct them.

If you have backed-up your files then you could try a very sneaky install. When you get to the "Partitioning Section" choose "Advanced" or "Manual" at the bottom. It will re-scan your partitions. "Edit" or "Change" your main linux partition to set it's "Mount Point" = /
Do you have a separate /home partition? If you have then set it's "Mount Point" to /home obviously! If not then don't worry.

Ok, the trick is to make sure that no partitions get formatted (except the swap). Just make sure that all the partitions are UNticked in the "Format?" column.

Hopefully then you will find that your documents are still there after completing the install!!
Good luck and take care!
Regards from
Tom :)

Dear Tom,
Thank you for the info.
The computer is my mother in laws, and I can only work on it when I am not working, which is generally a couple of hours each weekend.
I will try your suggestions over next weekend and see how we go.
Kind regards,
Mac

> To: <email address hidden>
> From: <email address hidden>
> Subject: RE: [Question #140476]: Upgrade to 10.04 resulted in Kernel Panic on reboot
> Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2011 20:17:24 +0000
>
> Your question #140476 on grub2 in ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+question/140476
>
> Tom proposed the following answer:
> Delance
>
> Ahah, i see your point. Grub2 can boot 8.04 just fine so your
> suggestion of just (re?)-installing grub2 might be enough to completely
> fix the issue. It might not but it is worth trying as it wont hurt
>
> Ok, "sudo fdisk -l" would help us deal with the instructions on the page you posted before
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Reinstalling%20from%20LiveCD
>
> Regards from
> Tom :)
>
> --
> If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
> know that it is solved:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+question/140476/+confirm?answer_id=7
>
> If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to the
> following page to enter your feedback:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+question/140476
>
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.

Hi :)

Did you manage to re-install or something to fix this?
Regards from
Tom :)

Dear Tom,
I had a spare little HDD with an old windows XP on it, so after trying a couple of fixes and getting lost, I swapped it over. The computer is a build up for my mother in law so that she can surf the net and use her Emails (firefox) and talk to her friends on Skype (most important). The difficulties with skype let down the original UBUNTU 8.04 I had on the old HDD.
Thanks for following up. The problems I have may be due to the fact that the system is as old as the hills and the processor an old Pentium 3 3.5 gig. I am trying to build up something with very limited tasks to perform and do not want to spend heaps.
If I upgrade her system, I will try Ubuntu again, as even at this level I find the Windows XP I am using to be pretty crappy.
Thanks for thinking of me.
Best wishes,
Mac

> To: <email address hidden>
> From: <email address hidden>
> Subject: RE: [Question #140476]: Upgrade to 10.04 resulted in Kernel Panic on reboot
> Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2011 10:25:25 +0000
>
> Your question #140476 on grub2 in ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+question/140476
>
> Tom posted a new comment:
> Hi :)
>
> Did you manage to re-install or something to fix this?
> Regards from
> Tom :)
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.

Hi :)

Please can i recommend posting a question in DistroWatch Reader's Comments
http://distrowatch.com
to get good suggestions of which distro might be best for your hardware.

They start a new thread on Mondays and not many people read the old one over the weekend but it is worth trying and they often need questions like this to help get chats back on-topic!

Unlike Windows it is not a good idea to use older releases on older hardware. There is a huge variety of distros that cover different ranges of hardware at the fringes.

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slitaz
Ubuntu is the heaviest distro and if you have time to quickly run a LiveCd session of SliTaz then you will see what i mean about distros being a little different! SliTaz is designed to be extremely light and fast on older hardware. It is only 30Mb to download compared to Ubuntu's 7-800Mb! It avoids the bloat that Ubuntu has but that means it misses a lot of the functionality too. you might have to install some things separately and configure the networking to get online.

However, it might be a better idea to just try Ubuntu 10.10 as that seems to work better than the 10.04 on at least 1 older machine for me.

With most distros you can just boot up straight from the Cd without actually installing it! This is called a LiveCd session and you can get the same effect using a Usb-stick or many other types of media but we still refer to it as a LiveCd even if it is on a usb-stick. It is good as a way of test-driving the distro before committing to it and helps check how well the hardware co-operates.

Good luck and apols for such a long post!
Regards from
Tom :)

Hi :)

I think many people might recommend Puppy for this sort of thing
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=puppy

Personally i find it very difficult to work with because it is so tightly compressed that it is difficult to install programs or make any changes to but if it does work straight away then it might be ideal.

I prefer sliTaz because it is a full proper linux and is easy to configure and add programs to but puppy does have a huge fan-base and large community so it is worth trying quickly at least once.

Here is the sliTaz link again
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slitaz

Quite a few people like AntiX although i would install a taskbar rather than staying with the right-click menu.
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=antix
I found that not having a "Start" button (renamed to "Windows button" in Vista and Win7) was just too disturbing for me although accessing all that stuff by simply right-clicking anywhere on the desktop 'should' make things easier for me in theory.

PClinuxOs is also fairly popular
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pclinuxos
and mepis
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mepis
but i haven't tried them for more than a few minutes each yet.

There are a LOT of others and the people at DW are usually happy to help if you let them know something about the machine's specs and purpose (emailing and skype)
http://distrowatch.com

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)