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After breaking Ubuntu I decided to reinstall Ubuntu, since I had heard it is quite simple with a live CD/USB, all you need to do is select "Something Else", then not select the "Format Partition" check box so that /home is safe. When I actually tried to do this however, I get a dialog box like this:

Error Box

This comes up a couple of seconds after it asks what time zone I'm in. And, as if it wasn't bad enough, I now can't boot Ubuntu, because I only get a purple screen. The Live USB was an ISO that I downloaded as a torrent from the website and claims to install Ubuntu 14.04.02 (x64 bit)

Research:

There is a bug report on launch pad, but I don't know what partman-target is, and I really don't want to install the Ubuntu ISO again (especially with my internet), because it may not actually fix the error.

A second bug report exists with no real leads (unless I want to install Arch Linux like the 15th comment suggests) so I still can't find any real solutions, especially outside launch pad.

On the Ubuntu Forums there is a comprehensive guide on installing Ubuntu without losing data, but mentions nothing about the error, so is only useful considering my lackluster steps in the introduction

  • was your / installed on a different partition then your /home in your original set-up? – Fabby Jun 30 '15 at 08:59
  • @Fabby Nope, all of Ubuntu is installed on the same partition (apart from swap space and boot) – Ben Hollier Jun 30 '15 at 09:16
  • Did you try to remove the unnecessary files manually? – user23013 Jun 30 '15 at 11:27
  • @user23013 Unnecessary files? Would that be directories like /usr, /etc, or would that be /home? I'm not sure what you mean by "unnecessary files" – Ben Hollier Jun 30 '15 at 12:17
  • A workaround I could suggest is that you shrink the partition in question, and then create a new partition, install the Ubuntu on it. Then mount the previous partition as your home, after installation by modifying your fstab. Then you could free up space on the home partition by deleting the old ubuntu installation. – daltonfury42 Jul 04 '15 at 07:46
  • @daltonfury42 I'll have to try that, but its a shame no one could fix the error – Ben Hollier Jul 04 '15 at 17:25
  • What is your filesystem? – daltonfury42 Jul 04 '15 at 17:36
  • @daltonfury42 Ext4 (I also have Windows 7 installed on another partition) – Ben Hollier Jul 04 '15 at 17:37
  • Did you try e2fsck -p -f -C 0 /dev/sdb1 on the partition from a live environment? Try if you havin't and post the results. – daltonfury42 Jul 04 '15 at 17:42
  • (Warning! replace sdb1 with your partition) – daltonfury42 Jul 04 '15 at 17:48
  • @daltonfury42 I ran it from my LiveCD, and I first got an error about running as root (so I prefixed the command with sudo), then it said I needed to run the command without -p or -a, so I removed them. It went through a progress bar and every so often asked if I wanted to fix some part of the partition, so I did. After that I ran the original command again and it didn't say anything of real use (It's hard to remember after rebooting on windows) – Ben Hollier Jul 04 '15 at 17:59

2 Answers2

2

After a discussion with OP, a working solution was found. Just boot into a live system, open a terminal and type:

sudo e2fsck -f -C 0 /dev/sdxy

where sdxy is the corresponding partition. This should solve the issue.

Note : e2fsck works on Linux ext2/ext3/ext4 file systems. If you have a different file system, execute sudo fsck /dev/sdxy -f instead.

daltonfury42
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If you would have followed this advice it would have been as simple as formatting / and keeping /home

The easiest thing to do now, would be to actually reinstall and partition at a minimum: /, swap and /home. That way your computer will be future-proof against any more re-installs. The best you could do is follow this advice from What's a good back-up strategy for 1 PC

Fabby
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