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So, I've somehow managed to wreck my Ubuntu machine (Ubuntu 16.04) by installing some software.

Now, when I try to log in, the screen just goes black for a bit and then takes me back to log in screen. Same happens when I try to log in with a different desktop environment, as I was using Gnome Shell instead of the Unity environment.

I can, however, log in as a guest but it won't connect to the internet.

So, can someone please advise me as to the best method for recovering all my stuff? I want to get all my stuff off then reinstall Ubuntu 17. I don't suppose there's any way to do this as a guest, or will I need to do it via BIOS or some other thing?

devius
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The Citizen
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2 Answers2

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One way is to user another bootable ubuntu USB stick/CD and then trying the live boot. After the computer is booted, the open the terminal and type lsblk This will show all your hard drives on your computer. Mount the hard drive to /mnt using mount /dev/sda<your_hard_drive_no> /mnt. Now you can copy all the data to another storage media by visiting /mnt directory.

Swapnil Goyal
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You can boot with Ubuntu Live CD / USB and backup your stuff. But before that try to recover your system by setting right ownership to your home directory. To do this press ctrl + alt + f1 key combination to enter console mode and type your username and password. After you are logged type:

sudo chown -R $(id -u):$(id -g) ~

where the $(id ...) commands produce your actual username and reboot by type:

sudo shutdown -r now
waltinator
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Nikolay Jambazov
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