Ubuntu 11.04 disaster

[Miykel]

G'Day; Just got the upgrade message from Ubuntu so I went ahead and did the upgrade but now when I boot it comes to a black screen which says;
GNU GRUB Version 1.99 rc1-13 Ubuntu 3,
Instructions to hit TAB then I get a list of commands which only reboot seems to work, is there a fix for this or do I delete the partition and start all over again???.
Kind Regards Miykel

[Rubberman]

Personally, I think that instead of an Upgrade notice, it should be called "Commit Suicide"... The code in 11.04 is so new, and not yet really stable (call it a version 1.0), that I can only recommend installing it in a virtual machine for testing at this point in time. BTW, what video hardware do you have? Is it nVidia? Or do you have both integrated video and an add-in video card?

In any case, this is a good example of why you should make a bit image backup copy of your system drive before doing something like this. At least that way you could restore your system to a known good state before you fell into the "Pit of Dispair".

[Miykel]

G'Day Rubberman, Yes it was suicide, but if you don't jump you don't learn, I ended up downloading the latest Wubi, deleted the Ubuntu partition in W7 and installed 11.04 fresh and it's perfect, turned out to e the 64bit version but thats fine, W7 is 64bit also, which is probably why Wubi downloaded the 64 bit version, nVidia drivers loaded straight up through additional drivers, flash player was the only drama but I found a site where a kind person had posted all the codes to install flashplayer through the terminal, a bit complex but worked exactly correct. It's so nice to use, beautiful desktop, the developers done a brilliant job, they deserve a BIG thanks.
Kind regards Miykel

[Rubberman]

Glad you got it sorted out Miykel. Usually, doing an upgrade from one major version to another is not a good idea. Usually a lot of stuff gets broken in the process, which I think you found out. For example, you can "upgrade" from RHEL 5 to 6, but not happily. Everyone recommends doing a clean install.

[hub_cap]

I also attempted an upgrade from 10.10 to 11.04 with disasterious results. I then used my full backup (made with sudo tar cvpzf /media/Ubuntu_2_Backup/10.10-backup-`date +%F`.tgz --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tgz --exclude=/media --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys / ) in order to go back to 10.10. This was even worse, so I reinstalled 10.10 over the existing partition. I'll stay with 10.10 for awhile longer.

[Miykel]

G'Day Hub_cap, Well worth doing a clean install of 11.04, upgrade doesn't seem to be any good, but if you can reformat your partition and install 11.04 it'll be well worth the trouble, I even have the nVidia drivers installed, I have a dual boot with W7 so used easeuse partition manager to format the partition then installed with Wubi.
Blessings Miykel

[hub_cap]

Great plan, Miykel, if it weren't for the fact that ALL software must be reinstalled, ie VLC, Evolution accounts, Mailwasher, etc. A lot of effort when the upgrade is supposed to do the job. Until the upgrade is fixed, I'll stay with 10.10. The previous upgrades worked without gliches. 9.04, 9.10, 10.04, 10.10.
I'm using dual boot with XP Pro (only use it for Quicken and TurboTax since Wine seems to be useless)

[Miykel]

G'Day again Hub_cap; one thing I found was that the upgrade was to 64bit, so is the Wubi install, so perhaps thats the problem your having. Might be worth a look
Regards Miykel

[hub_cap]

I'm using 32 bit on a Dell d610, 2 GB RAM, 160 gb hd.

[glene77is]

G'Day; Just got the upgrade message from Ubuntu so I went ahead and did the upgrade but now when I boot it comes to a black screen . . .

Miykel,
I was on another thread, tracing the same scenario.
Check this URL:
April – 2011 – aaron-kelley.net
/grub-prompt-after-upgrade-to-ubuntu-11-04/#comment-44164

I had a first install as 10.04, then upgraded to 10.10, then upgraded to 11.04 ,and crash.
Same thing as your situation.
Several others reported the same sequence.
A fresh install of 11.04 from a Live-CD will work.

Being busy, I simply re-installed 10.10 from a Live-CD
and figure on waiting until I get the 11.04 Live-CD.

Check this URL:
I upgraded, and now I have this error... - Ubuntu Forums


At any rate, I suggest down-loading the gParted Magic Live-CD, version 6.0.
Read some of the website for usage. You will love it. Handy OS for utility repair, etc !
(1) I copied the major sub-dir directly from the CD into the XP C:\pmagic
(2) set my grub menu to point to it (instructions on the website),
(3) now I can re-boot into gParted Magic OS, XP, Ubuntu 10.04.

Buena suerta, glene77is