Recovering Ubuntu Lucid after broken software update
Submitted by pbw on Thu, 07/22/2010 - 07:08.
I was running a Lucid system on a laptop. I performed a software update, which stopped with an error when files in /etc/cron.daily could not be deleted or renamed. The result was that the boot images had been deleted, and I could only boot into memtest.
I downloaded the 10.04 Lucid desktop live cd, hoping to find a rescue option on the cd, but I could not. Basically, what I want to do is re-install 10.04 over the existing system, without re-formatting the partitions, but I don't see how to do this. Any suggestions?
What you describe is not
What you describe is not normal. I would suspect hardware problems until you have ruled that out.
I would not reinstall on top of that system without finding out what the problem was. A software update will not erase the old kernel leaving the system unbootable as you describe. Perhaps you have hard disk issues?
I would run the live cd and back up your files in your home folder and then check your hardware. You can reformat the drive and make it check for bad blocks (it will take all night). You can run memtest and CPU burn as well.