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I tried to remove the guest account following the instructions on this page Removing Guest Session at login in Ubuntu 14.04

I followed the steps and then restarted the laptop. As usual the Lenovo icon came and then the Ubuntu icon, but, after that when usually lock screen showed up, the display went off but the laptop was on. I pressed the power button and the Ubuntu icon came and the Laptop shut down. I can't see the lock screen and the desktop. How can I bring back the display? I have a 320 Gigs HDD without any partition and Ubuntu as the main OS (no dual boot). Is there any way to resolve the problem without losing any data? I have really important data in the Laptop. Please help!

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Billa
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  • Boot the computer then press CTRL+ALT+F1, if that works you will get a "Terminal" with login prompt within a few seconds. As you're writing here I assume that you have some other means to read in the linked posting; go back there and check against what you've done. Editing the *.conf file in nano should be one thing to try/check. – Hannu Jun 20 '14 at 14:50
  • If ^-- that doesn't work, you may try to use Recovery mode to get a similar prompt to work from. But there you MAY have to "check filesystems", "remount r/w" (text from memory) and possibly "Start network" before you "Drop too root shell/Terminal" - where you should be able to see/do the same things as above. – Hannu Jun 20 '14 at 15:08
  • I tried both the methods but when I press CTRL+ALT+F1 and open the 'terminal' and enter the password, an error "The system is running in low-graphics mode” comes and when I press enter twice it continues to usual boot and the display turns off. I also tried going to recovery, but when I press shift, GRUB loading appears and the display turns off. Is there any way where I can re-install Ubuntu without removing the data, it's really important for me. – Billa Jun 20 '14 at 15:54
  • Did you allow the computer to boot COMPLETELY, as in: it doesn't flash the disk-led anymore? NOTE: A re-install really should not be necessary for a change in ONE settings file. There are more ways to get to that file and change it back. – Hannu Jun 20 '14 at 16:15
  • Yes I did, it booted completely. I think that re-installing it is the best way to resolve the problem. I tried booting it from Live flash drive and it worked perfectly. I could also see my data folders. But when I open a folder it says 'You don't have permissions necessary to view the contents of "folder name". Or when I copy a folder to external HDD it says "The folder 'folder name' cannot be handled because you do not have permissions to read it". Is there any way I can copy the folders/files to external HDD? (The file system of the internal HDD is ext4 if that matters) – Billa Jun 20 '14 at 16:50
  • The Answer below has an (v) -symbol just below the ^, 0 and v -- if the answer helps you, click on the symbol to tell that it went well (it will turn green). – Hannu Jun 20 '14 at 17:58
  • Did you get it done? – Hannu Jun 23 '14 at 20:42
  • Please see this http://askubuntu.com/help/someone-answers – Hannu Jun 27 '14 at 16:43

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Try this,

Boot the "live flash drive", press CTRL+ALT+T to get a terminal. In that terminal type (press enter on each line):

nautilus &

Press F9 in nautilus so that you see the panel with "Places" on top. Farther down you see "Devices" Click on each of these that you need to access, i.e. the source and destination partitions for your file copy. Each click will mount the partition in question, making it accessible.

Now take good note on which window this nautilus uses; e.g. Move it slightly to the side... you will get A NEW one by the following:

Go back to the terminal and type:

sudo bash
nautilus &

In the NEW "nautilus", you should be able to copy files to the destination you wish.

CTRL-L will allow editing the path to the files you have visible, which also allows you to COPY the path (CTRL-C)

Now note: The files you copy will likely still 'belong' to the user in the failed installation... so you need to take ownership,

once again back to the terminal: paste the /destination/ path (as copied from above, OR RETYPE it)

cd /destination/
chown root:root *
ls -lR | grep -v root
cd

The ls -lR | grep -v root should show NO FILES, other data may appear. cd moves 'current dir' back to the $HOME of root.

Now go back to the FIRST nautilus and click on ALL _^_ ('eject CD' symbol) at the side of the Devices. This will 'unmount' them and ensure that all data has been written.

As you have reinstalled and need to copy back the files, use sudo chown $USER:$USER * after a cd as above, to take ownership of the files as the new user.

Hannu
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