Power cut during upgrade

[Celestianpower]

Hello,

My parents were updating our Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10, and it seemed to be going fine, but halfway through the upgrade, there was a power cut. When we got power back, Ubuntu wouldn't load at all. When we try to boot, the screen says:


Booting 'Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-15-386

root (hd0,0)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
kernel /boot/vwmlinux-2.6.31-15-386 root=/dev/mapper/Ubuntu-root ro quiet splash

Error 15: File not found

Press any key to continue...

When we do press any key, we get GRUB, but all of the options lead back to the screen as above. Does anyone have any ideas of how to fix this?

We have bought a new Ubuntu CD and are happy to reinstall Ubuntu fresh, but there are lots of files on the hardrive at the moment that we need and want to keep, so if we have to do this, is there any way of recovering them?

Thanks in advance!
Celestianpower.

[Jenkins1]

If you insert the cd and select your language and then select "try ubuntu without any change to your computer https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD#Using%20your%20LiveCD Have a look at these two pictures to see what I am on about. Using the live cd option boots the computer and runs it from the ram and cd, therefore not affecting your hard dirve. You will reach a normal desktop like you are use to. You can use this to open your ubuntu hard disk from the "places" menu. Any user data is located in the "home" folder. copy any thing you want across to a a flash drive. Your user data shouldn't be affected by the upgrade.

[Celestianpower]

Ok, I have done this, but the home folder is empty - it has empty folders of Documents, Downloads, etc :S. Could the files be on a different part of the hardrive that Ubuntu hasn't automatically mounted?

[Jenkins1]

Have you looked in the home folder on your computer hard disk or the live cd home folder? You need to select one of the hard disks below the "computer" icon in the "places" menu. You then need to navigate to the home directory on that disk.

[Celestianpower]

There are no hard disks underneath the "computer" icon, just "Floppy Drive".

[Jenkins1]

Try clicking on the "computer" icon and seeing if there are any extra hard disks listed. Also please go Aplications > Accessories > Terminal and type
sudo fdisk -l
Please copy and paste the out put here. It will give us an idea of your hard drive layout.

[Celestianpower]

On clicking "computer", I get just "Floppy Drive" and "Filesystem".

The output of 'sudo lshw -C disk' is:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo lshw -C disk
*-disk
description: ATA Disk
product: Maxtor 6E040L0
vendor: Maxtor
physical id: 0
bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/sda
version: NAR6
serial: E11MMVGN
size: 38GiB (41GB)
capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
configuration: ansiversion=5 signature=6f6b2d4d
*-cdrom
description: CD-R/CD-RW writer
product: CD-RW SOHR-5238S
vendor: LITE-ON
physical id: 1
bus info: scsi@1:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/cdrom
logical name: /dev/cdrw
logical name: /dev/scd0
logical name: /dev/sr0
logical name: /cdrom
version: 4S06
capabilities: removable audio cd-r cd-rw
configuration: ansiversion=5 mount.fstype=iso9660 mount.options=ro,noatime state=mounted status=ready
*-medium
physical id: 0
logical name: /dev/cdrom
logical name: /cdrom
configuration: mount.fstype=iso9660 mount.options=ro,noatime state=mounted

[Jenkins1]

Sorry my fault I said the wrong command please post the output of
sudo fdisk -l
Have you used irc? It would make it a bit easier go to http://shotofjaq.org/chat/ and change #shotofjaq to #ubuntu-uk and type in a nickname. I am ubuntujenkins on the channel. information about irc can be found herehttps://wiki.ubuntu.com/InternetRelayChat it just means that we can communicate quicker.

[Jenkins1]

sorry I could not help. I will be interested in how it is solved.

[Celestianpower]

The output of 'sudo fdisk -l' is:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 41.1 GB, 41110142976 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4998 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6f6b2d4d

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 31 248976 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 32 4998 39897427+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 32 4998 39897396 8e Linux LVM


My GParted window is attatched.

Can anyone else help?

[Jenkins1]

bump!

[ajgreeny]

I note the main ubuntu partition is on an LVM partition so will make life more difficult. In fact in a multiboot system it can be a real pain if you are not au-fait with dealing with those things, and mounting can be a problem.

You will need to ensure that you have the lvm packages installed on the live CD, which I am not sure are there by default, so install them if needed, and then investigate how you can actually mount an lvm partition in a normal ext3 or ext4 install, as I have no clue in detail how to do it.

OK, a quick look got me to this page http://linux-sxs.org/storage/fedora2ubuntu.html

[Celestianpower]

I haven't been able to get the Internet to run on the live CD version of Ubuntu, so I tried downloading the .deb files onto a pendrive and transfering them accross.

I downloaded http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic/lvm2, and it came up with:


Error: Dependency is not satifiable: libdevmapper1.02 (>= 2:1.02.02-2)

so I downloaded http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic/libdevmapper1.02.1, which the website tells me is the dependency of lvm2, and it said the same version is already installed. I reinstalled it anyway, and still get the same response when trying to install lvm2.

Does anyone have any ideas?