How to recover after unsuccessful upgrade to 18.04 from 17.10?

Question

I just tried to upgrade to 18.04 from 17.10 and experienced a catostrophic failure.

First, to try to upgrade I just enabled upgrade from the "Software Updater".

Upon a reboot after upgrading I get the message:

A start job is running for Hold until boot process finishes up.

Following this answer I uninstalled everything nVidia related from the root command prompt. That fixed that issue.

However, then all I see is the message “dev/sda1: clean and some information about blocks after boot.

This answer said that the solution for that was also to uninstall nVidia stuff. But since I did that, I tried (from the root command prompt) apt-get install ubunutu-desktop however nothing changed on boot and I am still stuck at that screen.

Also, I have very limited support for apt-get install anything because I always get a temporary dns failure error using apt.

Is there anything I can do to get past this? This is rough.

I doubt the this has anything to do with Nvidia. Anyway, you could try https://askubuntu.com/questions/1035066/cant-reach-login-screen-after-accidental-power-loss-during-an-upgrade/1035076?noredirect=1#comment1684137_1035076, and if nothing works, just reinstall. — mikewhatever, May 12 '18 at 23:45
Does this answer your question? "dev/sda1: clean, ..." This message appears after I startup my laptop, then it won't continue booting — karel, Mar 29 '22 at 06:11

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 10 '18 at 15:54

0

It may not help you here, but it looks like you'll have to restore from a backup. Next time, I'd recommend you utilise the inbuilt backup program in ubuntu for your personal files, and timeshift (or similar) for system files.

You can find timeshift here: http://www.teejeetech.in/p/timeshift.html

That way, if you system fails to boot, you can boot from a live CD and restore from a backup.

answered Jun 10 '18 at 15:54

starbeamrainbowlabs

1,197

Thanks. I like this suggestion but it should be a comment, not an answer. – Startec Sep 02 '18 at 22:22

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 06 '19 at 21:23

You could try making a bootable thumb drive of Ubuntu 17.10 using this guide, and then use that to boot your pc. Follow this guide to try Ubuntu without installing. That way you can at least salvage the files from the other drive using an external hard drive and the file manager once you log in. Then you can use the bootable usb to reinstall 17.10 to your original hard drive once you regain all of your files following a reboot.

This is a long shot, but you could also try removing the graphics card and see if it will use your integrated graphics instead, assuming that the NVidia drivers are the culprit and this isn't on a laptop. Make sure you shut your computer off first and disconnect it from power.

How to recover after unsuccessful upgrade to 18.04 from 17.10?

2 Answers2