Hard Drive 100% Full. Ubuntu Will Not Boot Up. Help!

[SecretCode]

Now when it boots, I get this message after the Ubuntu splash screen appears:

Install Problem
The configuration defaults for Gnome Power Manager 
have not been installed correctly. Please contact 
your computer administrator

My guess is that some of the files required during boot up were deleted or corrupted or not closed correctly when it first failed to boot up due to no free space. Somehow you need to find which ones they are and replace them, either from the live CD or from backups you may perhaps have taken.

Knowing what files/directories to replace might take a lot of trial and error though.

I'm no expert on this but searching for "repair ubuntu installation" might give some clues.

sudo apt-get install --fix-broken

or this page: How to repair a broken Ubuntu Desktop installation - Karmic Koala — Dharwadkar's Home on the web

Can you boot into the 'recovery' mode from GRUB?

[umechanism]

Ok. I read through the link you provided (thanks) and followed the directions. Basically, this guy discovered that his x11 file had become corrupted. So, using the live CD, I browsed out to my X11.conf file in Nautilus (under sudo) and renamed it to xll.conf.backup. I then rebooted the machine. Still did not work.

So, I booted into recovery mode and looked in /etc for an x11 file or directory but can not find any. There is no X11 in my subfolder of /etc now. What gives? Is it because I've booted into a recovery mode?

Still though...the partition remains full even after I've deleted my home directory, .gz files from /var, etc. I have 8 Gigs free on this drive but that apparently isn't enough and I can't locate where the mass amount of data is. Going nuts here. :>?

[umechanism]

I just noticed something...I can boot into recovery mode then select from the menu to "Resume Normal Boot" which takes me to a command line prompt. I'm in Ubuntu at this point but only at the command line. I can't get the GUI up. So is my issue with the GUI? I can't find the X11 file either.

Hmmm...

[umechanism]

Making progress...

1. Boot into recovery mode.
2. At menu, select "Continue with normal boot"
3. This gives you a command prompt (not in GUI).
4. Type "startx"
5. Gui starts and all files seem to be there.

Not sure what this means...just progress. Maybe I have an issue with my x11 server?
Thoughts?

[umechanism]

Now that I'm in, I got a warning saying that less than 1% of space was left on the disc. So, I used Disk Analyzer to scan the drive and it showed that the /.Trash-0 has 304 Gigs of stuff in it. I tried to empty the trash but it keeps putting it back in there. It won't go away.

So now I've opened a terminal and coded:

sudo rm -r /.Trash-0

Waiting now on results. Taking a long time and not visually doing anything.

[umechanism]

MARK IT SOLVED!

The above method seemed to have worked. Once I used 'startx" to open a gui, it opened as root so that gave me permissions to delete as needed. I deleted the /.trash folder as well as some videos in my home directory. Disk Usage Analyzer now says I have 440.9 GB total, used 77.4 Gigs, have 363.5 Gigs free.

The system is up and running with a little more pep in its step. I was on the verge of blowing the whole thing away and doing a fresh install. Glad I didn't!

Thanks to all who helped.

[SecretCode]

Good! I think you can marked it solved yourself, under the 'thread tools' menu.

Can you boot up as normal yet?

[umechanism]

Yes. Booting up normally.