Assistance with boot-repair and unbootable Ubuntu 18.0.4.2

[valtersitz]

Hi,
I've scanned the forum for a similar issue but could only find look-alike which could not solve mine. The boot-repair wiki advised to post here so here I am.

My issue:
After Ubuntu froze and I had to shut-it down manually I was not able to boot from it anymore. the only message that appears is ''dev/nvme0n1p2: clean, xxx/xxx files, xxxxx/xxxxx blocks'' and get stuck there.

I have tried:
- pressing ctrl+alt+f*. It did nothing.
- accessing Grub. I was not able to do so
- Repair Ubuntu 18.04.2 from a live-USB: the option is not appearing, only ''Erase Ubuntu'' and ''Install alongside ''Ubuntu 18.04.2''
- use boot-repair: it tells me the disk is full even after deleting 30GB of it, then it proceed to reinstall Grub. After rebooting I am still stuck with the same message as before. Link to the pastebin (http://paste.ubuntu.com/p/nkzrdpGs9g/)

My setup: Ubuntu 18.04.2 on a Xiaomi Air laptop. I do NOT have a Windows partition but oddly I have a vfat partition on nvme0n1p1 of which I am not sure of the usage. The pastebin generated by boot-repair. (http://paste.ubuntu.com/p/nkzrdpGs9g/)

I've been using Ubuntu for a while but in a very noob way...

Could you please help me fix this?
What can I provide more to help you help me?

Thanks!

EDIT: the initial message is ''dev/nvme0n1p2'' and not ''dev/sda1''

[TheFu]

/dev/nvme0n1p2 ext4 227G 216G 0 100% /mnt/boot-sav/nvme0n1p2
is full. Deleting stuff from anywhere else, doesn't help.

You have an entire disk (sdb) that has multiple NTFS partitions. Some of those don't appear to have been closed properly. If you don't use it, unplug it while troubleshooting.



=================== Final advice in case of suggested repair
Please do not forget to make your BIOS boot on nvme0n1p1/efi/.../grub*.efi file!
Use the EFI boot chooser to pick that location to boot. See if that works.

[valtersitz]

Thanks! But I'm still stuck for the following reasons:
1)
Deleting stuff from anywhere else, doesn't help.
I've been deleting from there but without success. I'm wondering if it's going to a Trash location that I need to empty but there is nothing in .local/share/trash...
2)
Use the EFI boot chooser to pick that location to boot
I've tried but failed as I only have the option to boot from nvme0n1p1/ which is my Samsung SSD...

For the NTFS partition I am googling and trying that rn

Thanks again!

[oldfred]

The external with NTFS partitions looks like an old Windows install. It has some of the boot files, but report did not show all the boot files. And Windows will not boot from an external anyway. Best not to use NTFS unless you have Windows or at least a Windows repair disk as NTFS will need chkdsk and defrag which you cannot do from Linux.

You show default boot in UEFI of Linpus Lite, you need to change to Ubuntu. May be best to also turn off UEFI Secure boot. Line 303 in report.

BootOrder: 0001,0000,2001,2002,2003
Boot0000* ubuntu HD(1,GPT,f923d3d0-fe0f-4127-8c9e-4387126cfde2,0x800,0x100000)/File(EFIubuntushimx64.efi)
Boot0001* Linpus lite HD(1,MBR,0x2602a6,0x800,0x39bf800)/File(EFIBootgrubx64.efi)RC
Boot
Change boot order with efibootmgr, some require all 4 hex char others 1 is ok.
sudo efibootmgr -o 0,1
see also
man efibootmgr


Can you press escape right after UEFI/BIOS screen to get grub menu? If so see if you can boot recovery mode to command line to run some housecleaning from there.

Boot-Repair uses bootinfoscript as first part of its report. And bootinfoscript has not been updated to report NVMe drives. User posted an updated version, but it has not been officially updated. I do not have NVMe drive to test.
Support NVMe and MMC devices bug oldfred request
https://github.com/arvidjaar/bootinfoscript/issues
See post by baedacool of proposed fixed version.

[valtersitz]

@oldfred thanks,

I guess it was showing Linpus as default because I was running boot-repair from the live-USB... When Ubuntu is set by default or that I remove the USB, then I get back to my initial problem of getting stuck during boot.

When pressing ESC after the BIOS I get to the grub command line BUT ls does not return ANYTHING.... So I went ahead and CTRL+ALT+DEL and then F12 and tried booting on Ubuntu from there. Again, got the initial issue of getting stuck....

Am I good for a full reinstall??

[oldfred]

Are you getting grub menu or a grub> terminal?
Did you let Boot-Repair do a full reinstall of grub from its advanced menu?
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair &
https://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair/home/Home/

Do you have good backups?

[valtersitz]

Alright! Got it!
I successfully got the grub menu (I was pressing ESC too much) and cleaned it. Apaprently the files I was deleting through boot-repair were going in /Trash-0 which was hidden and not freeing any space...
FYI I did not used the Boot-Repair in advanced menu as it was saying to contact the forum beforehand.
NO good back-ups, hence the determination to fix it!

[oldfred]

First thing then is good backups.
TheFu has many posts on best practice for backups.
discussion of alternatives/strategy backups
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2368992&p=13677224#post13677224
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BackupYourSystem
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CategoryBackupRecovery

Sysadmins: Everything they told you about backup WAS A LIE
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/12/storagebod_monomyth/
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-features/31745-data-recovery-tales-raid-is-not-backup
Best practice for Backups - theFu
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2368992
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2389631&p=13757986#post13757986
More backup info from 1clue
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2377810

[valtersitz]

Thanks!
I'm closing the thread