update to 10.04 failed computer inoperable

I would suggest that you download an iso image from one of the ubuntu sites, burn it to a dvd and do a new install. That will clear everything off of the computer and do a clean install.

Update-manager sometimes fails to upgrade distro. Download ISO image of 10.04.3. You can boot on Ubuntu media and choose "Try without install" to make a backup before doing anything, which is really a good idea if you have valuable data to recover. In this last case, after having done backup, boot and choose "Install", and then manual partitioning. If you have a dedicated partition for /home, check that format box is inactive, and mount folders on partitions. Your user files will be kept and you will get new system files. If you have only one partition, I never did it, but you can try to unchek formating and continue installation. I can't tell you what will happen. Perhaps you will keep user files, but installation will be less clean.

Well, I downloaded 10.04 onto a thumb drive using a different computer but don't know how to get the computer with the failed update to do anything with it. Delance, you instructed me to "boot on Ubuntu media" but I don't know how to do that, I guess. Any further help you could provide would be appreciated.

When you boot, enter in BIOS setup (could be key F2 or F8, as soon as computer is powered on), and change boot order to boot on USB external devices before internal hard disk (IDE or PATA or SATA).

I got into BIOS startup and tried every one of the options that had either IDE or USB in its name. None of them worked.

What is you BIOS software ? Could you find a link to documentation on the Web ?

It's version 1.23 (1VET65WW). Here's what happens: I enter BIOS and choose the boot from external devise option. It then shows me a Boot Menu that, sure enough, has "-USB HDD" as my first external boot option and it correctly identifies my USB stick by name (SanDisk SanDisk Cruzer). I hit ENTER, the SanDisk blinks bright a few times, the screen shows nothing but a single cursor in the upper left hand corner and SanDisk just goes to a pulsing glow and nothing else happens. (Really appreciate your hanging with me through all of this, btw.)

So you get the infamous "blank screen". Have a look at: http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2010/05/06/ubuntu-10-04-lucid-blank-screen-at-startup-workaround/

Source of your problem is that your Ubuntu version (Karmic) is not supported any more.Run

gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

and replace your source list with

## EOL upgrade sources.list
# Required
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ CODENAME main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ CODENAME-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ CODENAME-security main restricted universe multiverse

(Replace codename with Karmic if that is versio you are running)

Save and close file.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

After that try again from updates manager to upgrade your Ubuntu to Lucid.

@zvacet: 10.04.2 LTS is Lucid and not Karmic, and is (and will be for 2 years) supported.
@Gary: what is your graphic card/chipset ?

@ delance

OP said "I got a message that I was running a version of Ubuntu that was no longer supported so I attempted to update to version 10.04"

It is good guess that he/she is running Karmic,don't you think?

@zvacet
I think there is some misunderstanding.
Current issue is about 10.04.2 LTS Lucid and the blank screen.
Karmic 9.10 was a good release, but is not supported by Canonical, which means no security updates and no release of new version of software. It continues to be usable (some people always use today 8.04) if current software fill the needs. Switching to another distribution, Ubuntu or lightweight distro will enable software and community support.

As Gary Techentien said he tried t o upgrade to 10.04 and then problems start.I still believe that upgrade become problematic is because he is using unsupported version.In that case he has to change source list as I posted and after that hew will be able to upgrade to 10.04.