12.04 not booting

[Jonno303]

I posted a question on Ask Ubuntu, haven't received an answer yet. Does anyone have a resolution?

I am new to Linux and have recently set up a dual boot with Windows 7 on my Lenovo W530 (8gb RAM). During the partitioning phase of setting up my dual boot I noticed there was a 8gb partition set aside for Hibernation. Apparently this is a regular situation faced by those wishing to partition a SSD.
Anyway, the installation of Ubuntu 12.04 64bit went ahead and everything had been relatively smooth over the last few days whilst I downloaded and installed the software I required. I must admit as a noob, I felt I was copying and pasting a lot of terminal commands that might have altered the internal dynamics of the computer in ways I could not comprehend. However, this process was mostly successful.

After setting up most of the software I turned my attention to the hibernation function, as I thought it would be a waste of 8gb on my SSD if it was not utilised on Ubuntu. After reading the forums, I found that the function for hibernate had been hidden due to instability issues. I pressed ahead and followed the instructions to reenable it. This was successful. However, I noticed that on shutdown or restart, the computer would hang on a black screen in the final stages of the shutdown process. It required me to long press the power button to turn off the machine.

This morning I tried to boot the computer and found that the computer now hangs on a black screen after selecting Ubuntu in GRUB. Long pressing the power button loads the Ubuntu shutting down screen (loading dot animation), but sometimes this also leads to another black screen.

After this I booted the machine and selected the recovery menu, and after trying to boot it as a 'regular' session, the machine does not recognise my login (or maybe I am mistaken??). My first attempt at selecting the recovery menu showed a message: ata_id [878]:hdio_get_identity failed for '/dev/sbd': invalid. Although the problem persists, this message is not shown anymore.
I tried Boot Repair however this also failed to resolve the issue. FYI the message after completing Boot Repair was: http://paste2.org/p/3482165

Most posts related to this problem suggest deleting all partitions and starting again, however there is some software that I won't have access to again (on windows 7 partition). So deleting all partitions is my final resort. Please help!

[nerdtron]

Why not try reinstalling ubuntu again and overwriting the partition allocated to ubuntu. You'll lose all your data on ubuntu but at least won't affect any of the files in the windows 7 partition. Also, it will reinstall GRUB which will enable you to choose windows 7 at boot again.

[Jonno303]

Thanks!

Just a question: is that manually selecting the partitions or would the automatic 'install alongside Windows 7' option work?

[nerdtron]

It would be a lot safer when manually selecting partitions. If you choose "install alongside windows 7", new partitions will be created again. You wouldn't like that.

[Jonno303]

Many thanks! Of course I would have preferred to have fixed my current ubuntu, but this is the next best thing. Many thanks!

[oldfred]

I do not understand why you would get this error? You show not sdb drive.
ata_id [878]:hdio_get_identity failed for '/dev/sbd': invalid.

Or is that related to a USB flash drive you had plugged in to do the install?

[r.stiltskin]

I agree with nerdtron. There's no reason to repartition the disk. It seems like the safest thing to try would be to select manual partitioning, but then leave the partitions as they are. Just let it format /dev/sda6 as ext4 file system (deleting all data in that partition) and select that as the mountpoint for /, and format /dev/sda7 as swap and then proceed with the installation.