Ubuntu
grub2 package

Ubuntu 9.10 totally crashed grub cannot boot after upgrade

Asked by Nirosha

i use ubuntu 9.10 on my laptop acer extensa 5630 since the release of the ubuntu 9.10. it worked very well. but today itself it crashed and cannot even load ubuntu log in screen. it says "Failed to boot default entries. Press any key to continue..."
most recently i updated the ubuntu as usual. but it updated partially and i installed updates as it is (its size was 500-550 MB). when it installing it said "Ubuntu Desktop cannot upgrade" and kept asking to update again and again. when trying to go to language support it said problem with software package index. as the solution it said to run "sudo apt-get install -f" and i did same. then in the terminal it show removing all the applications that i installed. after finishing that i tried to access my home folder and partitions. it said no programme associated with it. and cannot even restart and shut down. then i turned off the laptop using power switch. now it totally dead. pls help me. my everything in that laptop. pls help.

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Antonio Litterio (antonio-litterio-gmail) said : 		#1

Hi Nirosha, what happen if you Press any key to continue?
If a shell root appears, try with file-system check with command fsck
If there are some errors press yes to correct them.

I hope that it solves your problem.

Regards

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Nirosha (ratrmns) said : 		#2

Hi Antonio,

thnx for your reply. it keeps saying "Failed to boot default entries. Press any key to continue..." when press a key. nothing happens. this appears after loading GRUB.

Best Regards

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Antonio Litterio (antonio-litterio-gmail) said : 		#3

Are there some informations about the failure?

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Nirosha (ratrmns) said : 		#4

no. nothing. only thing before i turned off the machine is problem with software package index. as the solution for it showed "sudo apt-get install -f" to run.
this problem began with last Friday daily update of the ubuntu. after installing half or more updates it said about some broken packages and can only do partial upgrade. then i click ok. but i didn't complete. showed a error message saying about software signature. then i cancel everything. on monday it asked again to upgrade (not update. the file size was 500-550MB) and i canceled again. on wednesday i allowed upgrade and only partially upgraded. after that all problems began. started to say continuously errors in installation as i mentioned before.
i never faced such a crash in ubuntu since i was using version 8.10.
i tried to recover my files using ubuntu 9.10 live cd. but cannot access to folders and partitions. says no privilege to access. so now i'm thinking about reinstalling ubuntu 9.10 (how about 10.04 alpha 2. just tryout) and start all over again.

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Antonio Litterio (antonio-litterio-gmail) said : 		#5

Wait wait before to reinstall it, you can try this solution. There is a possibility to launch with live-cd, your os, and on it you can try to recover updates and grub.
There are steps:
Launch a live-cd or a live-usb in "try modality".
Ones you are logged, mount your hdd, can you mounting it in graphics manner (with Places->your Filesystem)?
Ones mounted the filesystem, with nautilus discover its path location, see on top of nautilus, it could be "/media/something" and copy it, you must use it with chroot command.
Open a shell Application->Accessories->Terminal and launch these commands
sudo su
chroot /media/something
now you have superuser shell on your hdd filesystem and then you can launch the recovery command:
apt-get install -f
apt-get update
update-grub
exit (with this command you logout to the hdd shell)

Unmount filesystem and try to reboot.

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Nirosha (ratrmns) said : 		#6

Dear Mr. Antonio,

I was able to mount my partitions and access my data. But i cannot access home folder (actually i had reserve 5GB partition as my home) of my crashed system.
Also i want to know something more. My previous O/S was Win XP (before shift to Ubuntu). And as you know partitions was NTFS. When I install Ubuntu I kept it same (I didn't know how to convert NTFS to Ext 3 or 4.) Can I convert that NTFS partitions into Ext 4 now.

Can you help with this problem?

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

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