Gozie's questions

I'm using an Asus ROG Strix system, and I've been dual-booting Windows and Linux for a couple of months now with no issue. A few days ago, I decided to upgrade my system to Windows 11. After the update, I'm stuck with a GRUB menu saying something like

GNU GRUB version 2.04...  
Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions. 
Anywhere else TAB lists possible device or file completions.  
grub>

I've checked a couple of other questions online like this and most were recommended booting using a live USB stick and fixing the bootloader using the boot-repair package. I installed the package but I don't have the option most people see and recommend. The recommended repair option. This is the pastebin from creating the BootInfo summary option. Not sure where to go from here. Wondering how I can repair the bootloader to what it was before.

I am also unable to even go past the first step in this tutorial, as I always get an error mount: /mnt: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb5, missing codepage or helper program, or other error. Looking further into this, I tried to fix the bad drive using fsck as outline here but then I get this error.

fsck from util-linux 2.34
e2fsck 1.45.5 (07-Jan-2020)
ext2fs_open2: Bad magic number in super-block
fsck.ext2: Superblock invalid, trying backup blocks...
fsck.ext2: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sdb5

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a valid ext2/ext3/ext4
filesystem.  If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2/ext3/ext4
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
    e2fsck -b 8193 <device>
 or
    e2fsck -b 32768 <device>

Also, any of the recommended commands give the same error as well. Running the sudo fdisk -l command, and I get this on my main drive with /dev/sdb5 being my Ubuntu partition

Disk /dev/sdb: 256.18 GiB, 275064201216 bytes, 537234768 sectors
Disk model: Crucial_CT275MX3
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: EF9C52D6-8EB4-46F7-89FA-4AEA30C7089D

Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sdb1       2048   1085439   1083392   529M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sdb2    1085440   1290239    204800   100M EFI System
/dev/sdb3    1290240   1323007     32768    16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sdb4    1323008 319723994 318400987 151.8G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sdb5  321163264 537233407 216070144   103G Linux filesystem

Not sure it matters, but I eventually downgraded back to Windows 10 from 11 (for personal reasons) but that obviously had no effect on the issue.

I know similar questions have been asked countlessly on this platform, but none seem to have helped me. For a while now, I've been able to play x265 10-bit videos on my system using mpv media player but after updating to Ubuntu 20.04, the videos have reverted back to how they playing before which was terrible lags, unsynchronised sub/video, and sometimes the video won't even show while the audio keeps going. I experienced these problems before but after getting the gstreamer1.0-libde265 package, the issue was resolved, at least on mpv. All x265 videos were playing smoothly. But since the update, I haven't been able to play x265 videos smoothly on mpv any longer, or on any media player for that matter. Although I can still play them smoothly on windows. I'm assuming it's because the ppa I used to add the package mentioned above was disabled on upgrade to 20.04.

Incase anyone needs info, here's the output from vainfo:

libva info: VA-API version 1.7.0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/iHD_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_7
libva error: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/iHD_drv_video.so init failed
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 1
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_6
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.7 (libva 2.6.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver for Intel(R) CherryView - 2.4.0
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264MultiviewHigh      : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264MultiviewHigh      : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264StereoHigh         : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264StereoHigh         : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileVC1Simple              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Main                : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileNone                   : VAEntrypointVideoProc
      VAProfileJPEGBaseline           : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileJPEGBaseline           : VAEntrypointEncPicture
      VAProfileVP8Version0_3          : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVP8Version0_3          : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileHEVCMain               : VAEntrypointVLD

And here's the output from lscpu:

Architecture:                    x86_64
CPU op-mode(s):                  32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order:                      Little Endian
Address sizes:                   36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
CPU(s):                          2
On-line CPU(s) list:             0,1
Thread(s) per core:              1
Core(s) per socket:              2
Socket(s):                       1
NUMA node(s):                    1
Vendor ID:                       GenuineIntel
CPU family:                      6
Model:                           76
Model name:                      Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU  N3060  @ 1.60GHz
Stepping:                        4
CPU MHz:                         1968.194
CPU max MHz:                     2480.0000
CPU min MHz:                     480.0000
BogoMIPS:                        3200.00
Virtualization:                  VT-x
L1d cache:                       48 KiB
L1i cache:                       64 KiB
L2 cache:                        2 MiB
NUMA node0 CPU(s):               0,1
Vulnerability Itlb multihit:     Not affected
Vulnerability L1tf:              Not affected
Vulnerability Mds:               Mitigation; Clear CPU buffers; SMT disabled
Vulnerability Meltdown:          Mitigation; PTI
Vulnerability Spec store bypass: Not affected
Vulnerability Spectre v1:        Mitigation; usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user
                                  pointer sanitization
Vulnerability Spectre v2:        Mitigation; Full generic retpoline, IBPB condit
                                 ional, IBRS_FW, STIBP disabled, RSB filling
Vulnerability Srbds:             Not affected
Vulnerability Tsx async abort:   Not affected
Flags:                           fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtr
                                 r pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx f
                                 xsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm 
                                 constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nop
                                 l xtopology tsc_reliable nonstop_tsc cpuid aper
                                 fmperf tsc_known_freq pni pclmulqdq dtes64 moni
                                 tor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse
                                 4_1 sse4_2 movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes 
                                 rdrand lahf_lm 3dnowprefetch epb pti ibrs ibpb 
                                 stibp tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid tsc
                                 _adjust smep erms dtherm ida arat md_clear

P.S. Sorry for all the ranting, I'm a noob, so a low-level explanation would be much appreciated.

I know this question seems similar to the question in this link EXT4-fs error after Ubuntu 17.04 upgrade, however, mine is different in the case that I am not using a Samsung NVMe SSD, and therefore the workaround by changing the boot parameter and also the bug report are not helping me. Thing is, I get the same errors gotten as the user from the other question.

Although mine happens randomly, sometimes when I boot the system, I'm not able to open any apllications as they close instantly, and when I try to shutdown or restart, it gets stuck and shows a black screen with an error looking like this ext-fs error device sda 7 ext4_find_entry comm gdm3: reading directory iblock 0, followed by a couple of errors saying /dev/sda7: Clearing orphaned inode 6946818 (uid=122, gid=127, mode=0100600, size=0).

Then it shows that it is starting a couple of processes, and after showing [ OK ] Started MySQL Community Server., it shows another error [ 642.321539] systemd-journald[314]: Failed to write entry (24 items, 610 bytes), ignoring: Read-only file system... and keeps showing more errors like that forever.

Even if I force a restart, the same thing always happens a second time, then on the third time, it works again. Like I said earlier, this is totally random, some days I go by without this happening, while some days it happens frequently. I'm dual-booting Windows 10 and that works fine. I'm using a HP 250 G5 Notebook PC, Ubuntu 18.04. Hard drive model is ST500LM000-1EJ162 (DEM7).

Edit: As requested, below is a screenshot of my Disks page

I have been trying for a while to install vlc 3.0 on ubuntu 17.10, with no luck. I even installed the snap version but it doesn't seem to play videos outside of the home folder, so I can't view videos on my other partitions.

Thing is, when I try to install vlc 3.0 from the stable PPA, I get vlc 2.2.6 instead. After adding the PPA and run sudo apt-get update, I get the following error

 E: The repository 'http://ppa.launchpad.net/videolan/stable-daily/ubuntu artful Release' does not have a Release file.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.

I have tried removing the PPA and adding it back but it still says the same thing. Am I missing something

EDIT: I have tried the solution from this link but I still get the release file not found error

I used to dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu on my previous laptop and everything worked just fine. I got a new 500gb HP Laptop and after installing Ubuntu, I realized that about 100gb was missing. Ubuntu is allocated to 114gb and Windows is allocated to 256gb. I have no idea where the other space went to and I want to know if it can be recovered.

My hard drive is failing and I want to back it up to an external hard drive. The problem is, my hard drive is partitioned and I don't know how to go about the back up in such a way that the external hard drive will be partitioned the same way as my current one