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A bit of a backstory... I'm relatively new to using Ubuntu (maybe 2 years?).

I had always dualbooted before but recently I ditched Windows for Linux and installed Ubuntu 19.10 Eoan Ermie on my laptop. (I wanted to install Ubuntu 20.04 but the setup GUI never loaded and stayed black). I then updated Ubuntu 19.10 and used it for like a week before wanting to upgrade.

I ran all the commands to upgrade my current system then used do-release-upgrade to upgrade via the Terminal. It went smoothly until the end where it asked me to restart. I typed y and pressed ENTER. I knew something would go wrong when i started getting failed to write reg messages, then it wouldn't restart. It just showed the Ubuntu logo and did not turn off, nor restart.

Would it help if I mention that my Ubuntu 19.10 was encrypted?

I force shutdown and turned on my PC. It booted and asked me for my password that will un-encrypt the drive.

I entered it in and it said it was successful, then I saw a black screen with a unmoveable mouse cursor.

I waited for like 30 minutes before shutting my laptop down and booting off Ubuntu 19.10 Live Usb. It said it could not detect any Operating Systems so the OS would have quite possibly been corrupted after the upgrade. I just reinstalled 19.10 and had just finished reinstalling all my applications.

This had happened to me before once and I left it and decided to try it again now. I searched the internet for a solution but never found one. Am I doing something wrong? If so, what can I do to do it the correct way?

Note: I cannot install it via a live boot method like a live usb because, even after installing the image multiple times from the Ubuntu website, the setup GUI never loads and stays black.

If you have a solution, it would be helpful to keep all my files and packages whilst upgrading.

I'm sorry if I am asking too much, and I hope you can help! :)

corrupt_disk1
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    Does this answer your question? My computer boots to a black screen, what options do I have to fix it? – user535733 Jun 14 '20 at 21:00
  • i have read that post before when i first got that problem and it didnt answer my question. you see- i cant access the grub menu during boot or any of the tty termianls. Thanks for your suggestion, though! – corrupt_disk1 Jun 14 '20 at 21:04
  • "cant access the grub menu"? Why not? Is something wrong with your keyboard? Have you tried the common answers? – user535733 Jun 14 '20 at 21:08
  • i followed everythin in this article https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-upgrade-ubuntu-to-20-04-lts-focal-fossa and i mean cant access the grub menu as in it wasnt showing me what os to choose to boot to like it would – corrupt_disk1 Jun 14 '20 at 21:12
  • if it helps, when i upgraded in the terminal - it says that there were possible missing firmware for my gpu. i didnt know where to get that firmware so i ignored it. – corrupt_disk1 Jun 14 '20 at 21:20
  • @Nmath Im getting stuck at the point where it says to reboot your system to complete the upgrade, the problem is that im getting failed to write reg errors and it boots to a black screen with a unmoveable cursor. and pressing esc constantly launches my bios instead of the grub menu – corrupt_disk1 Jun 14 '20 at 21:25
  • addition... after i entered my decrypt password, ubuntu says "press ctrl+c to cancel filesystem checks", ctrl+c does not work and there is no progress bar, then it just goes to the black screen with the cursor – corrupt_disk1 Jun 14 '20 at 21:28
  • it sounds like you have more than one issue... have you considered just installing Ubuntu 20.04 cleanly from USB installation media? Are you certain your installation media is valid (did you verify integrity/checksums?) Why are you trying to skip file system checks? – Nmath Jun 14 '20 at 21:41
  • See https://askubuntu.com/questions/16042/how-to-get-to-the-grub-menu-at-boot-time. @Nmath raises an great point - you have multiple issues all bundled together and it's impossible for us to tease them apart from here. I gently suggest that you will make better progress if you don't skip over problems - stop and learn about them and fix them as you encounter each. – user535733 Jun 14 '20 at 22:07
  • @user535733 Thanks for your suggestion, I will try a clean install of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. – corrupt_disk1 Jun 15 '20 at 10:04

1 Answers1

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Thanks for your help! I have successfully managed to upgrade to ubuntu 20.04 while keeping my files and packages.

I did it accidentally, I was trying to repair a package by using the command sudo apt-get update and then sudo apt-get upgrade and Ubuntu just started to upgrade to 20.04 even though I just wanted my packages upgraded. I checked /etc/os-release and it said VERSION="20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)".

Now because I only upgraded some packages, software updator told me that the upgrade wasn't finished even though the command exited. So, I clicked upgrade.

Now, everything works fine. I dont know what the problem was, but I ran fsck from a live media, upgraded my packages and tried to find firmware for my gpu (I couldn't).

Thanks for your help and suggestions!

corrupt_disk1
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