Been trying for various answers to this for a while
Background: I run a partitioned hard drive with Windows XP and Ubuntu. I have important files on both partitions but most of them are on the Ubuntu side.
Problem: interrupted update process from Ubuntu 11.04 (I think it's that one, though might have been a special netbook version) to the new 11.10. result is that I cannot reboot. The screen gets stuck at the startup screen with dots. I cannot access the terminal from here, despite some forum posts suggesting that this should be possible. Same goes for the (recovery mode) option - no joy. This obviously means that I cant access the files in the ubuntu part of the drive.
My approach so far has focused upon accessing the lost files.
I have made a boot USB for Ubuntu 11.10 and successfully booted to it. I hoped that it would allow access to the old files. It doesn't - from what I can tell the files are in a folder that is locked ('permission denied' or something to that effect).
I have tried accessing the files from Windows using Diskinternal's Linux reader and similar programs. These don't seem to work - they provide long lists of files with incomprehensible names which cant be opened.
The one thing I haven't tried is running the main install option for 11.10 from the USB booted desktop. I'm worried that it would erase the files I'm trying to retrieve. Any thoughts there?
I realize that the main avenue I haven't looked at is to try to fix the corrupted 11.04 version of ubuntu. However I have almost no experience of using the terminal and am a complete newbie in this respect. I can enter commands directly from something I'm given but cant problem solve myself - just have no idea what I'm doing. If I was to take this approach I'd need my hand held the whole way.
So, can anyone help me here? Would be hugely appreciative!