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CloudE11
Asked: 2021-01-05 11:23:03 +0800 CST

How can I recover the / directory from a broken Ubuntu OS with live USB?

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Basically:

Recently, I successfully upgraded an old 4 GB laptop from 16.04 LTS to 18.04 LTS but soon after completing it I tried to make the jump to 20.04 LTS and a problem arose.

I was browsing on the 18.04 system when it started to restart. Last I remember it was near 70% of the way through the installation part.

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Troubleshooting possible causes:

I'm not sure why its broke now. Maybe it was lack of updating the system before the final LTS upgrade; or, maybe it was that I was browsing and missed a message just before it restarted.

Attempted fixes:

  1. Entering GRUB and putting "nomodeset" on the Linux line as suggested. I've spaces either side of that input.
  2. Copying directory contents to a external HDD. This worded with a 20 GB partition but I need the contents of the main 200 GB partition but the Documents folder is "unreadable". The permissions menu tells me I am not the owner so I can't change the permissions.

I need to back-up the data and, if possible, upgrade the system to recover and use the OS - instructions on how to clone the disk, in this case, as a failsafe would be helpful. I'll check soon to see is, at least, the cloning covered but the rest doesn't seem to be. I'd appreciate it if anyone could provide the relevant information to do all that. Thanks for reading.

Additional info: boot-repair(its LiveOS)

SUMMARY:

In hindsight the update to 20.04 must have completed. Therefore, the answer here applies to computers which don't load the OS when the computer restarts after finishing an OS upgrade.

This computer didn't support UEFI and the problem was loading to a black screen or a black screen with 1.2 lines of non-helpful computer speak, no matter how many restarts.

boot

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Ok so, as I said, I did basic boot-repair to no avail but afterwards entered recovery mode via the GRUB available and the processes ran therein recovered it and solved this issue.

    P.S. For me boot-repair was, in my experience so far, best at getting past a bad GRUB with minimal BASH editing(subsequent issue) by restoring the MBR(advanced boot-repair option), rebooting, then doing a basic boot-repair. The laptop I did these experiments on didn't support UEFI.

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