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I upgraded from Ubuntu 14.04 to 14.10 and got the black screen issue that had when trying other distributions. My graphics card is Intel HD Graphics 4400, I don't know if this info is enough or you need more.

I have tried all possible solutions I found in the forums and I am not even sure I am doing the correct things in recovery mode... the further I've been, I see the red dots of Ubuntu loading but doesn't end.

I don't mind reinstalling 14.04, but I would nee to recover at least my user data (files on desktop, chromium favourites, my work from the last weeks). I have no clue on how to do it with commands. I have the user folder encrypted, I have the code password.

If I could copy at least my personal files in a usb hdd I would be happy enough and reinstall 14.04. BTW, I also have a Windows partition

Elder Geek
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deseslg
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1 Answers1

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It appears that you have an eCryptfs encrypted home directory. You should be able to access the encrypted home directory rather easily:

  1. Get a Ubuntu live CD/USB, preferably of a recent version, and boot into it
  2. Mount your root partition (either your /home partition if you have one, or the root partition otherwise)
  3. Run ecryptfs-recover-private /media/ubuntu/ROOTFSUUID/home/USERNAME where USERNAME is your username, and /media/ubuntu/ROOTFSUUID is the path to your root partition mountpoint. Follow the prompts, and if mounting was successful, the mount point of your encrypted home directory should be printed into the terminal.
  4. Navigate to the mount point and copy your files out.

If that fails, you might get it to work by chrooting your root partition on your live CD:

  1. Mount your root partition: sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt/, where /dev/sdXY is your root partition device
  2. Run for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /run /sys; do sudo mount -b $i /mnt$i; done
  3. Mount the media you want to copy your files to to a directory in /mnt (e.g. /mnt/mnt) with sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt/mnt/, where /dev/sdXY is the media you wish to copy to, not the root partition
  4. Run sudo chroot /mnt
  5. Run ecryptfs-recover-private /home/USERNAME and follow the prompts
  6. Copy out the files from the mount point outputted by the command in step 5
zhongfu
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  • Thank you very much zhongfu, I am preparing the live USB. – deseslg Apr 11 '15 at 14:21
  • Unfortunately, everytime I arrive to "Enter your LOGIN passphrase" it ends up with the same error:

    Error: Unwrapping passphrase and inserting into the user session kering failed [-5]

    It happens following your steps and also the ones given by @Elder Geek, and tried with the saved passphrase and also with my login password.

     – deseslg Apr 11 '15 at 15:16
  • Apologies, I forgot that mounting the partition would put it in a different path. I've edited the question to fix that. Refer to step 3 in the first list again, and do the steps in the second list (after unmounting your root partition) if that fails. – zhongfu Apr 11 '15 at 15:30
  • thank you for your help and sorry for my late reply, but I could not use another computer to check this. After a few attemps I finally arrived to:

    INFO: Success! Private data mounted at [/tmp/ecryptfs.C0hU1p7l].

    I am supposed to have /dev/sdc/ mounted, which is the usb drive where I want to copy the files. My new problem is that I am writing this:

    root@ubuntu:/# cp -a /tmp/ecryptfs.C0hU1p7l/. /dev/sdc/

     – deseslg Apr 14 '15 at 13:38
  • But I guess I am doing something wrong. At least I am happy because the password finally worked.

    I have also been trying to fix the black screen issue with the tips read all over internet, but no success either.

     – deseslg Apr 14 '15 at 13:43
  • You should mount /dev/sdc1 (if there's only one partition on /dev/sdc) to a folder, and not copy directly to the device file. To do this, make normal folder and mount the partition with mount /dev/sdc1 /PATH/TO/FOLDER, where /PATH/TO/FOLDER is the path to the new folder you created – zhongfu Apr 14 '15 at 13:45