Ubuntu Installation :: Failed Update Of 10.10 Results In Unbootable System?
Feb 4, 2011
yesterday I performed an automatic security update suggested by the update manager on my virtualized (with VirtualBox on a Windows 7 host) Ubuntu 10.10 installation.
The update somehow failed and left me with an unbootable system. When I try to boot, I am told that various folders, files, and what not are missing. Then the system drops into a busybox and leaves me with an (initramfs) prompt.
This happens with all kernels I get offered by GRUB, although the error messages are quite different from kernel to kernel.
Well, the short of it is this: I don't have the slightest idea on how to get back to a working system and this site is the final straw I'm willing to grab. A complete disaster like this following an update initiated and executed by the system is unheard of in Windows-land; at least I haven't heard of it, yet, and therefore I am going to abandon Ubuntu and Linux altogeteher, if there is no remedy.
I've just reported a launchpad bug report about my desktop system being unbootable after upgrade to lucid lynx. [URL]... I opened this thread to ask if someone else experienced a similar problem and for collecting information and workarounds (none yet) about this quite serius problem. The system has an nvidia graphic card and proprietary drivers were installed before the upgrade. However I'm not sure the problem is related to this. FYI, the system booted regularly from a usb stick with ubuntu lucid lynx. SO the problem is in the upgrade path.
My mom's computer is no longer bootable. I was thinking of attempting to fix it later on this week and am thinking of doing a chroot and updating via a live CD hoping that an even newer update solves the problem but I have some doubts of success. Does anyone have any information about this issue so that I can be better prepared to fix it? Also, I thought I should mention that I tried the second newest kernel to see if that would make it work. It didn't. The error is something along the lines of having the /dev/diskuuid change. If I'm correct, Ubuntu changed the disk's name and is trying to boot the old name. It's dropping to an initramfs shell (not the regular terminal where you can work miracles ).
I tried running an upgrade from 8.04 LTS to 10.4 last night, and things seemed to be going smoothly. The upgrade progress was nearly complete, and I wandered off for a while to let it run. When I came back, I had nothing but an orange screen and and unresponsive system. I left it alone all night with the hopes that something would happen, but this morning nothing had changed so I hard restarted the system.
Ubuntu 10.4 appears in GRUB, but the system cannot boot and exits with a kernel panic and the message "vfs unable to mount root fs on unknown-block" I was able to boot to a 10.4 LiveCD, and I can browse all of my files from there. What can I do to get this system back up an running? I have dozens of user account and a lot of customization (it acts as a webserver with a wiki for a gaming website running on it, among other things), so I really really don't want to do a fresh install and lose all my data and customizations.
I updated 9.10 and system crashed during update and is now unbootable. It seems to freeze (or is just taking a really long time) at fsck. Is there any way to make my computer usable again without reinstalling the whole OS?
I've run the command "sudo apt-get update" from terminal, showing no update to do.Then I've run the update manager (System-Administration-Update Manager) and it has shown an update (adobe flash).I thought that "apt-get update" command and update manager were the same... Why do I have different results ? Is something missing in my "sources.list" file ?
My current situation is I have two physical hard disks, one with Windows 7 (sda) and another where I recently installed Ubuntu 9.1 (sdb). At this time there were no issues.
Now after getting used to 9.1 I selected to upgrade to 10.04 from the update manager. During this install I was told I needed to upgrade GRUB which I understand is the bootloader and was told to choose where to install it.Now at this time I had no knowledge of drive naming conventions in Linux and there was no option to cancel the upgrade to look for help, so instead I followed the advice in the help box to simply select every device listed
The result was a fully working Ubuntu installation but at the cost of an unbootable Windows 7.Windows is showing on the GRUB menu but selecting it gives only a blank screen with a flashing cursor and no ability to do anything besides ctrl-alt-delete.
After a few hours of googling solutions including downgrading GRUB, there was no change and it seems that I actually have a version of GRUB on both drives. The one on the windows drive (sda) is the default loaded GRUB that shows Windows 7 but cannot boot it. The second GRUB install on the Ubuntu drive (sdb) is the one I am able to configure through Ubuntu but does not list Windows 7 on its boot list even after using "sudo update-grub"
Yesterday I got an update in update-manager: gdm blabla 3.2... installed. restarted. And I see nothing after the boot screen (plymouth, default one) display stays blank, even caps-lock doesn't turn on its indicator on the keyboard. hdd activity indicator on the laptop doesn't blink, only power indicator is on... the only way is to press and hold power button to turn it off. restart and I see the same picture........
I thought that's hdd, because yesterday ubuntu froze completely on a ..... video (adobe I hate you!)
so I turned laptop off and started again (before it froze I installed that gdm "security-"update) and saw the blank screen for the first time.
then I booted into "single" mode, manually starting X OR GDM gives me the same blank screen with frozen/unusable keyboard, caps-, numlock do not word, I can't switch virtual terminals...
so I've reinstalled the whole system an hour ago. Everything went well!!!!I booted into clean 11.04 (except my configs, cuz I haven't formated /home partition). Then I restored my ppa's (/etc/apt) that I backed up from the 'single' mode... updated apt database, restored all of my backuped apps (dpkg --get-selections >... dpgk --set-selections <...)an hour to update everything. installed ati driver, RESTART, and what I see? BLANK SCREEN RIGHT AFTER PLYMOUTH.
startx from single mode = blank screen gdm start from single mode = blank screen
I can't use ubuntu, PLEASE HELP ME fixing that crap.
I downloaded yesterday gdm blabla3, blabla3.1 and blabla3.2
downgraded the crapped gdm-0ubuntu3.2 to 3 and to 3.1 NO DIFFERENCE. I JUST GET BLANK SCREEN.
before restoring the apps everything worked.
and yesterday THE ONLY INSTALLED UPDATE WAS gdm
there are absolutely NO ERRORS in /var/log/*I viewed every file from that dir, that was created at boot attempt...no errors, nothing, just blank screen
I have a Macbook Pro 5,5. I had Fedora 14 installed on it, updated to the latest version. I updated the kernel, and performed an update. Now, every time my system starts, it loads up the startup fedora bar, and it gets stuck at the bar being loaded 100%.I press ESC to see what is going on behind the scenes, and I notice that the problem is that atd cannot start up.
I just installed Fedora9 in my desktop. The installation was successful and it was doing security update and system update right after install. After all the update service finished, I do a manual update to see what happy (Sysem>Administration>Update System). It keeps coming up with Package Error with the message "failed to get a TID: Incorrect path with ';' returned!".
I have set up Ubuntu to install over the network. I did this by copying the directory contents of /install/netboot/ from the CD over to my tftp server in the correct directory.It works and I can go through a good part of the install process. I get to the point where it tells me the kernel is installed and to check what applications I would like. I forget the exact wording.So, I check Ubuntu desktop and it continues on and then pops up a red screen that says:"Installation step failed An installation step failed. You can try to run the failing item again from the menu, or skip it and choose something else. The failing step is: Select and install software." I have tried this on two different machines with the same result.
I compiled my own custom kernel for the first time. I tinkered with different options, nothing to difficult. I actually didn't expect it to work the first time.
I had kept the original lilo boot config just in case something was to go wrong. Now when I try to boot the system, I always get a "VFS: cannot mount root system on (8,3)". I googled this and found that my kernel did not support my root filesystem (btrfs). So I made an initrd with btrfs kernel module, but it didn't help. I then got a string of errors about how /dev could not be mounted.
My question is two-fold. First, how come when I configure the system back to when it was first installed, it still won't boot? Im using the same kernel (2.6.37.6-smp). Second, how can I get myself out of this rut without reinstalling?
lilo.conf
Code: lba32 append=" vt.default_utf8=0" boot=/dev/sda vga = normal # Linux - Slackware image = /boot/vmlinuz-huge-smp-2.6.37.6-smp root = /dev/sda3 label = Linux read-only
BTW, I have been maintenancing the system by chrooting into the device off of my slackware boot disk. Im on slack 13.37
having had problems with getting grub2 to work on dual HDD setup...despite the most excellent advice on the forum i took the plunge and installed 10.10 from update manager within 10.04..... bingo fixed grub and now have dual boot again. but the update manager and synaptic package don't work because of libedata-cal1.2-6 file that remains..following other advice on the forum Advice gratefully received, how can i force an unistall of this package
mark@studypc:~$ sudo apt-get -f remove Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done
I've tried to use the GUI tool for update system in Fedora 10. It listed all of the available updates successfully, but it have not any response when i click the 'Update System' button~
I have installed Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha on my computer.was running fine until I installed usplash. Now when I boot up I get a message saying "Ubuntu is running in low-graphics mode" and a list of options. When I select any of them and press Enter I get a blank screen. I can't even load a command line. I want to remove usplash to see if that fixes the problem, but I would have to do it from another OS. How could I do that? My other operating systems are Ubuntu Karmic and OpenSUSE.
I hace two fedora 12 systems running currently and both are giving this error upon update..
Error Type: <class 'yum.Errors.RepoError'> Error Value: Error getting repository data for installed, repository not found File : /usr/share/PackageKit/helpers/yum/yumBackend.py, line 3125, in <module>
I have a 4 gig Kingston USB stick. I have an Eee PC with 4 gig internal flash drive (no hard drive). I can't find the specs but I believe it is roughly equivalent to an Eee PC 900 or something.
About a year ago I downloaded the then latest version of ubuntu for netbooks, created a bootable USB drive from my Mac, as per the instructions at:url
or whatever the equivalent site was then. It booted fine, it installed fine and everything was great.
Eventually the tiny flash drive in my EeePC got full. I couldn't upgrade to the new 9.10 distro through auto updates because there wasn't enough room to download them.
I tried to delete some old kernels and then delete some other stuff. I broke my linux installation and now it won't boot to a desktop. I can get a login prompt and I can boot to the fail safe terminal but not much else.
So, I tried repeating the steps above.
I downloaded the NEW version of ubuntu netbook remix from:url
I followed the instructions for making a bootable USB stick from the first link above. I used the EXACT SAME USB stick as last time (in fact, it still had the older version of the ubuntu install files on it).
There were no errors "creating" the USB drive and it can be mounted on my Mac and I can see the files are on it.
I stuck it into my EeePC and rebooted and hit the ESC key and selected the Kingston USB drive to boot from. The light on the USB drive flashed some, then the internal flash drive light flashed some and the EeePC booted from the internal drive.
I rebooted and went into the bios settings and made triple sure that it was set to boot from USB drive first and rebooted. The same thing happened (it "looked at" the USB drive, then booted from the internal drive).
I repeated the above a dozen times. I REinstalled the ubuntu files on the USB drive from my Mac. I repeated. Still the same.
I redownloaded the ubuntu files and did everything from scratch. Again no errors "creating" the USB drive and it can be mounted on my Mac and I can see the files are on it, but again, it is absolutely useless because it is unbootable.
I tried booting my Mac from the USB drive and my Mac didn't recognize it as a bootable drive either.
I found another 4 gig USB drive and repeated the steps above with it. It was exactly the same: no errors creating it, the drive is mountable on my Mac, but it is completely unbootable.
I am at a loss to find any info on this nor do I have any idea what to try next. I KNOW this worked with the first USB drive last year (with an earlier version of ubuntu). What could possibly have changed?
I did a routine update of my ubuntu 10.4 (in wubi vista) to the latest kernel (something -26) and installed a java plugin for firefox. After a reboot, i open up the "Ubuntu" entry and i see a message flash accross the screen (something about hda,0,0 or sda im not sure) then it just reboots the PC. No command line or anything. No need to say im pretty screwed
My question is, is there any way to get my files off of wubi? Or even better can i restore Ubuntu to working again? P.S for some reason the two times i have tried to run a live CD on this laptop, it has corrupted vista.
I upgraded from 10.10 to 11.04 and when i try to check for updates in the update manager it says:
W:Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/and471/kaza...source/Sources 404 Not Found , W:Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/and471/kaza...amd64/Packages 404 Not Found
Suffice to say I had a dual boot at work with an essential windows 7 and non-essential linux install on it, and randomly upgrading the distro made windows7 unbootable. Cue a missed days work, much embarrassment and ear bashing from those who are convinced Linux is written entirely by communists and hippies. In the end I had to re-install windows, which cut off the ability to boot to ubuntu - although I've left the existing ubuntu partitions as they were.
Although I can get away with allocating a few partitions to ubuntu, I can't really justify fiddling with the MBR based upon this experience. I need a fast boot and persistent data for doing anything further with ubuntu at work, so I'm wondering whether a safer bet would be to setup a usb stick with enough grub to boot to the existing ubuntu install? Not a full usb distribution, just enough to boot into the existing install? how this would be doneIs it really just a grub-install /dev/sdXX (where XX is the usb)?
I have had Ubuntu desktop on my PC for a year now and am very happy with it. A couple of months ago I got a Ubuntu server 10.04 for playing about with. I have installed the gui, for personal reasons, but I want to upgrade to 10.10
Whenever I attempt the upgrade my server becomes unbootable and I have to reimage and start again. I have even tried performing the upgrade before I install the GUI but it still makes no difference.
Although I have the GUI I am doing the upgrade via command line.
Upon watching the upgrade in process, I find that no errors are occurring. Could it be something to do with my server provider?
I was running Windows 10 on MSI GT70 2OD-064US hoped to dual boot first had three primary partitions shrunk largest one and ran debian-8.3.0-amd64-netinst.iso chose guided install with remaining free space, didn't force UEFI asked if I wanted to install GRUB after finding Windows Vista (loader) I went ahead and installed. Couldn't boot afterwards with dark screen saying no install media, changed BIOS to legacy mode and got grub prompt followed tutorial and entered these commands:
grub> set root=(hd0,5) grub> linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda5 grub> initrd /initrd.img grub> boot
This caused it to boot without GUI I ran grub-update and restarted back at grub> again. How to get debian to boot or even windows 10 again?
I created a LiveUSB and that worked. On about the 3rd use I attempted to update packages - about 174 came up I think (I saw that number on another post which reminded me, hence the precision). Two or three dialogues came up, unfortunately unintelligible to me, a Ubuntu novice. Both concerned grub2. The first I just forwarded on and the update trundled on. The 2nd asked me something like whether I wanted grub to update sda or sdb. I checked neither (against the pop-up help advice). The update completed but when I eventually went to reboot from the USB I got a repeating fatal message: something like "Could not load /lib/modules/2.6.31-17-generic/.dep". I had to switch off. It did reboot successfully from a LiveCD.
9.04 has not been updating and is giving these messages. Failed to fetch [URL]...86/Packages.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.92.170 80] Failed to fetch [URL]...86/Packages.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.92.170 80] Failed to fetch [URL]...rce/Sources.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.92.170 80] Failed to fetch [URL]...rce/Sources.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.92.170 80] Failed to fetch [URL]...86/Packages.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.92.170 80] ..... Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
I haven't been able to update my system as of late, because yum keeps giving me the same error, everytime I try to run updates/install packages.
Code: Running Transaction Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/yum", line 29, in <module> yummain.user_main(sys.argv[1:], exit_code=True)
[Code]....
Running it with -v did not provide any other information regarding this problem. I tried running yum -clean all as well as package-cleanup --dupes and other various forms and rpm -Va --nodeps --nofiledigest but didn't get any output.
I have an Acer Aspire 1410 laptop which was running Win7. The laptop lacks a DVD drive and came pre-installed with a recovery partition as well.I've been searching for ways to dual-boot Fedora on it. I bought a Samsung USB DVD drive, but I burned two copies of Fedora 12 and neither would boot, nor would my Knoppix Live CD. I even updated the bios. Then I tried liveusb-creator from my desktop Fedora 10 system, but I would still run into strange errors that prevented booting into the installer.
Finally I downloaded UNetbootin and created a USB stick to boot Fedora 12. Neither Fedora 12 nor Ubuntu would recognize my network adaptor for some reason. Undaunted, I then used UNetbootin to create a Fedora 11 image which got me into the boot installer for the first time. I then used my Fedora 12 image from my portable DVD drive to install. The install seemed to go well.
That is, until I rebooted. Grub came up as expected. Fedora 12 runs into a very early Kernel panic (not syncing: DMAR hardware is malfunctioning) within moments. I tried rebooting into Windows, but it apparently doesn't care much for Grub. It sends me into the Recovery software and asks me to reset my hard drive. I've tried that a couple of times now and it's useless. Is the problem with Grub? I thought it would play nicely with Win7 and at least allow me to boot into it, which is why I allowed it to overwrite my MBR. I lack a Win7 disc and cannot repair the MBR that way.
I'm running 9.04 and trying to use the update manager. On checking for updates, I get the error message:W: Failed to fetch http://mirror.uoregon.edu/ubuntu/arc...ty/Release.gpg Could not connect to 69.219.142.196:21 (69.219.142.196). - connect (111 Connection refused)W: Failed to fetch http://mirror.uoregon.edu/ubuntu/arc...tion-en_US.bz2 Could not connect to 69.219.142.196:21 (69.219.142.196). - connect (111 Connection refused)(more...)This used to work, but now it doesn't. I tried selecting all kinds of different sources in the "Software Sources" GUI. And this seemed to change my /etc/sources.list accordingly. But, whatever the hostname given (above mirror.uoregon...), that same IP address is shown 69.219.... huh? I can browse the web, etc fine from this computer
