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I lost power to my system while it was updating and it caused a series of errors that got worse and worse. My system got locked into being read-only mode and none of the solutions I found were able to fix it. Eventually it wouldn't let me get past the login screen anymore, so I want to just reinstall Ubuntu with a fresh start.

I have a boot drive with an ISO of 22.04 LTS made with Rufus ready. My motherboard is a MSI B550 Tomohawk. I can't figure out:

  1. How to factory reset my SSD to get rid of files that got corrupted after running fsck, or if I even need to wipe the drive.
  2. How to get to a boot manager to open my thumbdrive. This PC only ever had Ubuntu 20.04 (not 22.04) and not windows.

Help is appreciated, sorry if my English is bad, or if this is a naive question. I can't find any similar questions and really need to get back to schoolwork.

Update 1 - I learned the GNU Grub screen is where I want to be. My thumb drive is able to boot Ubuntu fine on another computer. I can never make it past the Grub. I have the same problem as this person no matter what I do, but I haven't installed Ubuntu successfully yet so I can't use sudo updates through Grub: failed to send WATCHDOG=1 Trying to just choose the normal option "Try or Install" usually gives a black screen, changing quiet splash to nomodeset or other suggestions give this same error over and over

Eric Kim
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1 Answers1

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It sounds like there is nothing salvageable on your drive. If this is the case, you can boot your installation disk and simply install a fresh instance of Ubuntu on the SSD. The installation will overwrite any corrupted files so you shouldn't have to wipe the drive.

Booting from a USB flash drive, etc. is somewhat dependent on the computer's manufacturer. Usually, you need to press a function key (e.g. F2) to bring up a boot menu and allow selection of the external USB drive. Check online for the method for your specific computer.

Finally, when you have a system running, make regular backup disk images of the entire system so that if a crash does occur you can restore a recent backup and only need to apply any updates that were made subsequent to the image being made.

CentaurusA
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  • Thank you. I tried almost every F# key but they all take me to something called GNU GRUB, which is a boot loader but I don't recognize it - there is an option to "Try or Install Ubuntu", but it takes me to either a black screen or a command line that throws a bunch of errors. The errors are never the same but say something is corrupt, did I set up the boot drive wrong? – Eric Kim Jun 23 '22 at 02:14
  • Do you have a recommended way to download and install linux distros? I only know of this one, and I can't really download without an OS already there. – Eric Kim Jun 23 '22 at 02:20
  • did you try the Esc key? – graham Jun 23 '22 at 05:14
  • I did but the escape key is generally non responsive. I have the same problem as this person no matter what I do, but I haven't installed Ubuntu successfully yet so I can't use sudo updates through Grub. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1007443/failed-to-send-watchdog-1 – Eric Kim Jun 23 '22 at 14:05