1

So my computer was originally running windows 8 when I got it and I installed ubuntu (13.04 or 13.10 i think) along side it so I could dual boot. Tonight I did the upgrade to ubuntu 14.04 and my entire partition seems to be pretty FUBAR. I fell asleep during the upgrade but the power went out while I was asleep and I don't think the upgrade finished (although I'm not 100% sure). Anyway when I woke up and the power came back on, I turned on my computer and it brought me to a black terminal screen that said "GNU GRUB version 2.02~2-9" and then something about being able to use minimal bash commands. I typed exit and it brought me to the BIOS boot loader menu and from there I could select to start ubuntu or windows. If I selected ubuntu it took me back to the black GRUB terminal screen. If I selected windows then windows loaded fine (as that's what I'm forced to use now).

So I have a couple questions:

  1. First and foremost, how do I fix this so I can use ubuntu again. At this point I don't care if it's the old or new version (and I might even prefer the old). I just need it to work.

  2. I have some projects I've been working on (on my ubuntu partition) that were not backed up anywhere (yes I know how stupid this is). Is there anyway to get that data off the hard drive or to not lose the data? It's not that I can't reproduce it, but I've put in a good number of hours on them and I would hate to have to start over.

Any help is greatly appreciated. I'm really at a loss for what to do and I'm starting to panic a little bit. Thanks in advance.

stub6225
  • 11
  • 1
    The solution to both your questions is to boot from a liveCD or USB stick and repair the system. First refer to this answer for instructions on how to repair your GRUB (it's obviously damaged) and while you're at it, make a backup of your project files to some external media. The live system will automatically detect the existing Ubuntu partition(s) so it's a matter of copy/paste to get your files. – hmayag May 22 '14 at 10:28
  • How do I access the files from the partition I can't boot to? I'm booted from the USB drive. Also boot repair fails every time I try it. Any other thoughts or suggestions? – stub6225 May 22 '14 at 19:49
  • Nevermind I rebooted it from the USB again and I can now see the files in my old partition and I got them backed up. But I still can't get Boot Repair to work. When I have UEFI enabled in the BIOS, it tells me to disable it and when I have it disabled, it tells me to enable it. – stub6225 May 22 '14 at 20:19
  • Nevermind again. I played around with a few BIOS settings and made repaired grub and the bad packages for the OS and it seems to be working fine now. Thanks so much for the help. – stub6225 May 22 '14 at 20:44

0 Answers0