Complete Clusterf&%#

[brianharr]

Hi

I was upgrading Kubuntu 15.04 to 15.10 and accidentally turned off the power halfway through. Now nothing works and my laptop (Asus X551M). Prior to this, it has been running for over a year, sweet as a nut, with hardly any problems.

Now when I turn on the power, I am presented with a blank screen with some light at the bottom of the screen. there is no text at all.

If I press Esc just after switch on, I get a boot device selection box offering the following 4 choices

ubuntu (PO: HGST HTS5450A7E680
UEFI: IP4 Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller
(First line repeated)
Enter Setup

If I press the first line, I get a GNU Grub box with 2 choices:
*Ubuntu
Advanced options for Ubuntu

If I press the 1st option, I get a Kubuntu caption with a white gear icon. This changes luminescence intensity for about 30 seconds and then settles down to a steady while colour but does nothing. I left this for several minutes and then rebooted.

I repeated the bootup sequence this time pressed 2nd option; Advanced Options for Ubuntu. This resulted in another box with 9 options

Ubuntu with Linux 4.2.0-19 generic
Ubuntu with Linux 4.2.0-19 generic (upstart)
Ubuntu with Linux 4.2.0-19 generic (recovery mode)
Ubuntu with Linux 4.2.0-18 generic
Ubuntu with Linux 4.2.0-18 generic (upstart)
Ubuntu with Linux 4.2.0-18 generic (recovery mode)
Ubuntu with Linux 3.16.0-36 generic
Ubuntu with Linux 3.16.0-36 generic (upstart)
Ubuntu with Linux 3.16.0-36 generic (recovery mode)

When I press 1st I fet text "Loading linux 4.2.0-19. Loading initial ramdisk and something else but Kubunu caption again and nothing happens. This is the same with 2nd option

I click 3rd option and pages of text scroll past and all OKs are green. Then recovery option screen opens. I try all options and then resume but get following error msg:

108.224545] NM1 watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#1 stuck for 22s! [irqbalance:22191]
this keeps repeating and increasing in value but the part before NM1 keeps changing. 22s changes to 23s

I eventually choose Linux version 3.16.0-16 generic and the system eventually boots up into my old desktop and I can access my files.However, Its painfully slow and keeps locking up and feels unstable with programmes acting oddly.

How do I get the system back up running problem free as it used to. I have 200GB Dropbox data on machine and would prefer not to reinstall

many thanks

[oshunluvr]

Well, that sucks.

Hind sight being what it is - next time have a separate home partition (or subvolume if using btrfs) then you can re-install without losing data.

If you can boot to any desktop - try running sudo dpkg --configure -a and/or sudo apt-get -f install in a terminal. If those don't work, you're likely screwed.

Another option - assuming you have enough free HD space - boot to Gparted live, partition the drive and create enough space for a new install (8GB min but 16-20 optimal). Then convert the old partition into a home partition and delete all but your home files.

BTW, I assume you're issue with the dropbox files is one of bandwidth not data loss- the files would automatically resync onto the machine.

[brianharr]

Thanks for this. Lots of useful info here. I'll try later on this evening. Not sure what you mean by booting to Gparted live. I think I have Gparted loaded. I'll have a look later on.

You're right about Dropbox. Not worried about data loss, just thinking about bandwidth.

Thanks again for your help.


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[oshunluvr]

A Gparted live boot would be to a USBstick or CDROM. If you boot to your install, you won't be able to re-size the partition in use, which I assumed you would need to do.

[brianharr]

Ah, I see. Thanks again.


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[brianharr]

It's happened again when I rebooted.

Is there anyway to completely remove v 4.2.0-19 and let the system boot up into 3.16.0-36, which boots ok. I could then upgrade again to current version and NOT switch off halfway through this time!


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