Why do I get a blue screen after interrupting upgrade to 12.04 with a power-off?

Question

I've turned off my laptop while the update manager was installing ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Now when I try to boot into ubuntu the screen is only in blue and I can do nothing execpt to turn it off. Is there anyway to reinstall th OS using the downloaded files? Thanks!

Solution 1

Today I had a very similar problem -- after updating the system, rebooting and logging in, only the blue screen appeared without any signs of Unity. The way I fixed it was this.

1. Switched to tty1 (Ctrl+Alt+F1), logged in and made sure that all updates have been applied (sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade).
2. Installed gdm by executing sudo apt-get install gdm. This automatically invoked configuration where I have selected gdm instead of lightdm. Installation of gdm lead to uninstallation of unity.
3. Rebooted, switched to tty1, logged in, and installed unity by executing sudo apt-get install unity and then ran sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm where I have selected lightdm this time.
4. Rebooted, logged in using the graphical prompt and Unity loaded as hoped for.

Hope this experience will be useful.

Solution 2

Turning off a computer while updating is a very dangerous and risky task. Do not do that unless there is a kernel panic or a power outage.

Now the only thing you can do is to recover all your personal files using a Ubuntu LiveCD and reinstall Ubuntu.

Comments

[Eliah Kagan]

What happens when you press Ctrl+Alt+F1?