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I'm not going to be able to provide all the information you will need to sort out my specific problem, but I wanted some general advice on what to do when Ubuntu won't load (for future issues). Suffice to say I'm in no way a computer pro, I just want to use Linux because I don't want to be tied to any commercial outfit for computing and I have been very pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to do everything I can do on Windows (often better) on Ubuntu.

However, I faced this this morning: Grub loads fine, I select Ubuntu and the screen freezes after a few seconds (black screen with minimal text, something about how many kb checked or something like that - it clearly got stuck trying to do something I normally don't notice it doing); after trying to reboot several times I gave up, reinstalled from a live USB iso, and there's no data loss as I have it all backed up in lots of places. It is a bit of a pain though and took most of this morning to sort it all out (reinstalling everything). It's a dual boot laptop and I could get into Windows - I was somewhat pleased that getting into Windows didn't help me sort it out either ;) (I may get brave enough one day to remove Windows altogether - but I'm fairly new to Linux and don't have the nerve yet). My question is, is there a logical series of steps to attempting to repair an installation that won't load, that a relative novice can try? I could get Grub up, choose the various options in Grub but didn't know where to begin to try to repair it. Ideally I wanted to use the live boot USB to repair the installation without deleting files / apps etc.
I am pretty sure it was a software issue - it's all fine now having reinstalled, all the non-Ubuntu partitions are fine and I just reinstalled Ubuntu on the partition it was on and it's working fine now. I checked all the disks from the live USB before reinstalling and no errors found. As I say, please don't try to solve my specific problem as I am well aware I haven't provided nearly enough information to begin, but a general (novice) guide to how to try to rescue a failed system would be really useful - if that is feasible Thanks v much. Will

Will
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Because @will is asking for general advice, I'm providing an answer to one problem Ubuntu may have when it doesn't starts.

Sometimes Ubuntu will freeze on start-up because your DISK is FULL, either because of an update, copying files form an external drive or a big enough download filled your disk. To fix this:

  1. Boot from an Ubuntu Live USB but DO NOT reinstall the system, choose: "Try Ubuntu".
  2. Insert another USB memory with enough empty space in a different port to cut and paste some big files there, like movies, to free up some space. (Around 10 GB will be enough).
  3. Turn off you computer, disconnect the USBs and start-up Ubuntu again normally.
  4. Manage your files so you can have enough empty space to continue using Ubuntu without problems.
Ventolinmono
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