Failed update of Ubuntu 10.10 results in unbootable system

[chessweb]

Hi,

yesterday I performed an automatic security update suggested by the update manager on my virtualized (with VirtualBox on a Windows 7 host) Ubuntu 10.10 installation.

The update somehow failed and left me with an unbootable system. When I try to boot, I am told that various folders, files, and what not are missing. Then the system drops into a busybox and leaves me with an (initramfs) prompt.

This happens with all kernels I get offered by GRUB, although the error messages are quite different from kernel to kernel.

Well, the short of it is this: I don't have the slightest idea on how to get back to a working system and this site is the final straw I'm willing to grab.
A complete disaster like this following an update initiated and executed by the system is unheard of in Windows-land; at least I haven't heard of it, yet, and therefore I am going to abandon Ubuntu and Linux altogeteher, if there is no remedy.

Regards, RSel

[mörgæs]

Please post the error message you are getting.

[akureyri]

Hello,

I have this same problem. My MacBook does not boot up and my pc boots up into command prompt where I can sign me in and than after a while the login screen appears and all is normal. This all happened after the first reboot after updating.

regards

[mörgæs]

As above: Please post the exact error messages the Macbook is showing.

[akureyri]

Hello,

It seems that I have a hard disk failure in my macbook. Now my pc works fine. I had some error messages that it could not mount the hard drive. When I booted the computer with the ubuntu cd I was unable to access the hard drive. I was also unable to format or partition. So it seems that the problem was not because of the upgrades.

[tigerZERO]

Hello,

I seem to be having the same problem with my macbook-based Ubuntu 10.10. The machine crashed after I tried to wake it from a screensaver last Friday (the 18th), so I'm not sure if it was that last update or what. I'm currently booting from the install CD, but even when I am using this OS I cannot mount the computer's hard drive to get at the files, nor can I run a clean install; the computer just freezes.

When I try to boot from the hard drive, the machine goes rapid-fire through a bunch of lines of code, faster than I can read, but it crashes after the following:

Begin: Running /scripts/init-bottom ... mount: mounting /dev on /root/dev failed: no such file or directory
mount: mounting /sys on /root/sys failed: no such file or directory
mount: mounting /proc on /root/proc failed: no such file or directory

Target filesystem doesn't have /sbin/init
no init found try passing init= bootarg

Then it apparently recognizes my USB drives as new hardware devices, after which it just hangs.