Minicomputer refuses to start Focal Fossa, after years of faultless service

[logie]

I have been using an Intel NUCminicomputer for several years. It has Intel Core i3 X4, running Ubuntu, most recently distro20.04 (Focal Fossa).

a week ago it refused to start. It shows the following messageon screen:
.................................................. .................................................. ......................


/dev/sda2contains a filesystem with errors check forced.
Inodesthat were part of a corrupted orphan linked list found.


dev/sda2:UNEXPETEDINCONSISTENCY:RUN fsck MANUALLY.

(i.e.,without -a or -p options)


fsckexited with status code 4
Theroot filesystem on /dev/sda2 requires a MANUAL fsck


BusyBox v 1.30.1 (Ubuntu 1:1.30.1-4 ubuntu6.3
built-inshell (ash)

Enter‘help’ for a list of built-in commands.

(nitramfs)
.................................................. .................................................. ................



Ientered ‘help’ and got a 10-linelist ofcommand words, which did notmean very much to me.


I’d be grateful for anyadvice. I have little understanding of the inner workings of Linux,but manage to follow instructions as a rule.


Thank in anticipation.


logcx

[Doug S]

It looks like your disk is broken.

[tea for one]

Perhaps boot into a live Ubuntu session and run fsck on /dev/sda2?

[ajgreeny]

To give you more info just in case tea for one's suggestion does not mean much to you, boot to a live ubuntu system, eg on a USB as you did perhaps when you installed originally, open a terminal and in that run command

sudo fdisk -l

to confirm the device name for the root partition of your installed OS is /dev/sda2.

Once you are sure which is the root partition run command

sudo e2fsck /dev/sda2

With luck that will show you some errors and offer to repair them.

Good luck.

[logie]

It looks like your disk is broken.

Thanks for your reply, but why do you think that? I'd not want to try replacing the SSD unless I could be sure.

[logie]

To give you more info just in case tea for one's suggestion does not mean much to you, boot to a live ubuntu system, eg on a USB as you did perhaps when you installed originally, open a terminal and in that run command

sudo fdisk -l

to confirm the device name for the root partition of your installed OS is /dev/sda2.

Once you are sure which is the root partition run command

sudo e2fsck /dev/sda2

With luck that will show you some errors and offer to repair them.

Good luck.

Thanks for this help. Could you please explain a little more: you say 'boot to a live ubuntu system'. I cannot at present boot to anything on the microcomputer that is causing trouble. Can I boot on a different machine? (or what? )
I shall certainly need luck!
greetings, logie.

[tea for one]

I suspect that your installed Ubuntu file system is damaged, which prevents you booting cleanly.

However, it will (hopefully) not prevent you booting a live Ubuntu session, similar to when you installed Ubuntu in the past.

Here is some info:- https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/try-ubu...etting-started

You may need your different machine to download the ISO and make a bootable USB device.