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After breaking Ubuntu I decided to reinstall Ubuntu, since I had heard it is quite simple with a live CD/USB, all you need to do is select "Something Else", then not select the "Format Partition" check box so that /home is safe. When I actually tried to do this however, I get a dialog box like this:

Error Box

This comes up a couple of seconds after it asks what time zone I'm in. And, as if it wasn't bad enough, I now can't boot Ubuntu, because I only get a purple screen. The Live USB was an ISO that I downloaded as a torrent from the website and claims to install Ubuntu 14.04.02 (x64 bit)

Research:

There is a bug report on launch pad, but I don't know what partman-target is, and I really don't want to install the Ubuntu ISO again (especially with my internet), because it may not actually fix the error.

A second bug report exists with no real leads (unless I want to install Arch Linux like the 15th comment suggests) so I still can't find any real solutions, especially outside launch pad.

On the Ubuntu Forums there is a comprehensive guide on installing Ubuntu without losing data, but mentions nothing about the error, so is only useful considering my lackluster steps in the introduction

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Ben Hollier
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2 Answers2

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After a discussion with OP, a working solution was found. Just boot into a live system, open a terminal and type:

sudo e2fsck -f -C 0 /dev/sdxy

where sdxy is the corresponding partition. This should solve the issue.

Note : e2fsck works on Linux ext2/ext3/ext4 file systems. If you have a different file system, execute sudo fsck /dev/sdxy -f instead.

daltonfury42
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If you would have followed this advice it would have been as simple as formatting / and keeping /home…

The easiest thing to do now, would be to actually reinstall and partition at a minimum: /, swap and /home. That way your computer will be future-proof against any more re-installs. The best you could do is follow this advice from What's a good back-up strategy for 1 PC…

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Fabby
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