System boots to busybox 1.5.1

Question

I am having some trouble with my Ubuntu 10.10, which I installed on windows filesystem using wubi.exe. For sometime now, whenever I boot Ubuntu, it boots up to busybox showing initramfs as shell.

From initial solutions mentioned on the web, I have cleaned my partition on Windows (using chkdsk), but the problem still persists. Any suggestions how I could fix my problem??

Answer 1

Your login shell is saved in /etc/passwd, maybe it has the budybox shell instead of bash there.

Answer 2

which I installed on windows filesystem using wubi.exe

Problem found.

Answer 3

Try rebooting a previous kernel. Sometimes a kernel update can leave a damaged initrd.img. If your previous kernel works you can rebuild the later initrd.img. e.g. (change the kernel version as appropriate):

sudo update-initramfs -u -k 2.6.35-28-generic

Answer 4

I keep getting same problem and finally I got the solution, which works every time for me:

First, boot your system with LIVE CD or Pendrive.

Now, open Terminal and execute sudo fsck /dev/sda1 (sda1 is generally used, if you have a different drive on which ubuntu is installed then give that). It may prompt you several times asking "y or n", in that case keep pressing Y.

After process is over , reboot the system and remove the pendrive.