Accidentally bricked my Linux system, help
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Fyi I'm not a linux expert or anything, casual user here.
I tried updating Kubuntu to the newest version, and it got screwed up the first time, I managed to get timeshift to work and reverse everything, I tried again, and now my computer is just straight up borked, it leaves me at a black screen with a stuck cursor when I boot in, no grub or anything, nothing responds, and there's nothing in the bios to boot into other then the broken installation. No idea what's going on, what do I do?
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Fyi I'm not a linux expert or anything, casual user here.
I tried updating Kubuntu to the newest version, and it got screwed up the first time, I managed to get timeshift to work and reverse everything, I tried again, and now my computer is just straight up borked, it leaves me at a black screen with a stuck cursor when I boot in, no grub or anything, nothing responds, and there's nothing in the bios to boot into other then the broken installation. No idea what's going on, what do I do?
If you have backups, reinstall.
If you don't, boot a "live CD" USB stick and make a backup, then reinstall.
Then think about how this happened and how to avoid it in the future:
I tried updating Kubuntu to the newest version, and it got screwed up the first time,
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Fyi I'm not a linux expert or anything, casual user here.
I tried updating Kubuntu to the newest version, and it got screwed up the first time, I managed to get timeshift to work and reverse everything, I tried again, and now my computer is just straight up borked, it leaves me at a black screen with a stuck cursor when I boot in, no grub or anything, nothing responds, and there's nothing in the bios to boot into other then the broken installation. No idea what's going on, what do I do?
Just to clarify. You system is not bricked. Bricked means that it can't boot anything. It sounds like the update is not working correctly (eg the kernel is not fully loading).
You have two options:
- Try to repair the current broken install (can be difficult depending on skill level)
- Backup your data and "nuke'n'pave", eg re-install it all.
Both options require a live USB with your distro on it (preferably the new version).
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If you have backups, reinstall.
If you don't, boot a "live CD" USB stick and make a backup, then reinstall.
Then think about how this happened and how to avoid it in the future:
I tried updating Kubuntu to the newest version, and it got screwed up the first time,
Something i recently learned:
Your live usb does not need to be the same distro as your main. (And in retrospect that makes total sense but i never realized)
My arch install broke and could not get timeshift to roll back using the arch live usb. But a ubuntu-desktop live usb worked flawlessly.
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Fyi I'm not a linux expert or anything, casual user here.
I tried updating Kubuntu to the newest version, and it got screwed up the first time, I managed to get timeshift to work and reverse everything, I tried again, and now my computer is just straight up borked, it leaves me at a black screen with a stuck cursor when I boot in, no grub or anything, nothing responds, and there's nothing in the bios to boot into other then the broken installation. No idea what's going on, what do I do?
It's been awhile, but I believe the correct process here is to boot with a live USB and repair your distro from there.
I think the tool is called 'boot-repair' for Ubuntu distros.
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Something i recently learned:
Your live usb does not need to be the same distro as your main. (And in retrospect that makes total sense but i never realized)
My arch install broke and could not get timeshift to roll back using the arch live usb. But a ubuntu-desktop live usb worked flawlessly.
Yes, for data recovery you really just need something to access the drives.
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If you have backups, reinstall.
If you don't, boot a "live CD" USB stick and make a backup, then reinstall.
Then think about how this happened and how to avoid it in the future:
I tried updating Kubuntu to the newest version, and it got screwed up the first time,
That's the thing tho, I have no idea what happened lol, I just let it upgrade, it did it's thing, and then it imploded on itself for some reason, don't know what even happened.
Are backups supposed to show up in the bios? Cause there's nothing there, just "Ubuntu" and "Linux Firmware Updater" are all I see in the bios, what am I looking out for here?
Okay, can you elaborate more on that please? How do I do any of that exactly? Just so I don't screw up anything by accident.
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Just to clarify. You system is not bricked. Bricked means that it can't boot anything. It sounds like the update is not working correctly (eg the kernel is not fully loading).
You have two options:
- Try to repair the current broken install (can be difficult depending on skill level)
- Backup your data and "nuke'n'pave", eg re-install it all.
Both options require a live USB with your distro on it (preferably the new version).
Good clarification and advice.
There are so many considerations when "reparing" an installation, that I would definitely suggest a reinstall here.
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Fyi I'm not a linux expert or anything, casual user here.
I tried updating Kubuntu to the newest version, and it got screwed up the first time, I managed to get timeshift to work and reverse everything, I tried again, and now my computer is just straight up borked, it leaves me at a black screen with a stuck cursor when I boot in, no grub or anything, nothing responds, and there's nothing in the bios to boot into other then the broken installation. No idea what's going on, what do I do?
I'd say Live-CD/USB and use the recovery mode to fix GRUB. Grub has to appear so thet's the first issue. If you're lucky it's the only one and you can skip the more complicated steps.
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Just to clarify. You system is not bricked. Bricked means that it can't boot anything. It sounds like the update is not working correctly (eg the kernel is not fully loading).
You have two options:
- Try to repair the current broken install (can be difficult depending on skill level)
- Backup your data and "nuke'n'pave", eg re-install it all.
Both options require a live USB with your distro on it (preferably the new version).
I really hope so man, it'd really suck if the thing died on me like this. Alright I'm gonna try to sort out the USB thing.
I'd rather repair it as it's my main system, so I definitely don't wanna lose everything on it. Although the drive is encrypted, is that gonna be a problem for me? How do I go about all of this exactly?
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Fyi I'm not a linux expert or anything, casual user here.
I tried updating Kubuntu to the newest version, and it got screwed up the first time, I managed to get timeshift to work and reverse everything, I tried again, and now my computer is just straight up borked, it leaves me at a black screen with a stuck cursor when I boot in, no grub or anything, nothing responds, and there's nothing in the bios to boot into other then the broken installation. No idea what's going on, what do I do?
You mention timeshift, did you restore to the working snapshot after selecting it in grub, then reboot AGAIN?
Booting a snapshot, does not restore from it, you need to open timeshift, restore the snapshot, then boot it up a second time (this time without selecting it in grub).
Otherwise, you didn't really restore it, you just booted into it, and if you re-attempted the broken update, messed it up, too.
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I'd say Live-CD/USB and use the recovery mode to fix GRUB. Grub has to appear so thet's the first issue. If you're lucky it's the only one and you can skip the more complicated steps.
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Alright, where do I find the recovery mode exactly? What am I looking for here? The live USB only lists different ways to try or install the distro, don't see any recovery modes listed anywhere in its grub thingy.
https://www.system-rescue.org/disk-partitioning/Repairing-a-damaged-Grub/
I would also suggest, if you get grub back, to choose the 2nd kernel version in the list. The latest/top one will probably put you back to your broken state.
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Fyi I'm not a linux expert or anything, casual user here.
I tried updating Kubuntu to the newest version, and it got screwed up the first time, I managed to get timeshift to work and reverse everything, I tried again, and now my computer is just straight up borked, it leaves me at a black screen with a stuck cursor when I boot in, no grub or anything, nothing responds, and there's nothing in the bios to boot into other then the broken installation. No idea what's going on, what do I do?
Check out Time Shift for your next install. Saved my ass on countless occasions, and ended up being an incredible learning tool as it completely removed any fear I had of breaking things.
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Something i recently learned:
Your live usb does not need to be the same distro as your main. (And in retrospect that makes total sense but i never realized)
My arch install broke and could not get timeshift to roll back using the arch live usb. But a ubuntu-desktop live usb worked flawlessly.
Yup... I recently booted into an EndeavorOS live USB, just so I could use the partitioning tools that come pre-installed, before rebooting and reinstalling Bazzite, because I was really hating the methods the Bazzite installer has for it.
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Alright, where do I find the recovery mode exactly? What am I looking for here? The live USB only lists different ways to try or install the distro, don't see any recovery modes listed anywhere in its grub thingy.
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Fyi I'm not a linux expert or anything, casual user here.
I tried updating Kubuntu to the newest version, and it got screwed up the first time, I managed to get timeshift to work and reverse everything, I tried again, and now my computer is just straight up borked, it leaves me at a black screen with a stuck cursor when I boot in, no grub or anything, nothing responds, and there's nothing in the bios to boot into other then the broken installation. No idea what's going on, what do I do?
Keep it up, this is how you become one of those "experts"
Can you post some more info on how far you've gotten?
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I really hope so man, it'd really suck if the thing died on me like this. Alright I'm gonna try to sort out the USB thing.
I'd rather repair it as it's my main system, so I definitely don't wanna lose everything on it. Although the drive is encrypted, is that gonna be a problem for me? How do I go about all of this exactly?
It wont be a problem because from the Live USB you can mount the encrypted drive in the file explorer app (Dolphin on KDE) after supplying the encryption password.
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