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I saw somebody in an answer to a problem just like mine that they tried hitting exit which worked for them before, now my computer is sitting on my bed and it says things like kernel panic and not syncing all of these things are making me nervous especially attempted to kill init!. I was wondering how long i should wait while it does this before i get worried and is there any way for me to recover all my old settings if i need to reinstall Ubuntu.

A little more background information, my computer was working fine but I closed it while it was going which normally puts it into sleep mode, but this time when I opened it back up it was taking forever for it to get going again and usually when that happens i just turn it off and back on again and its fine, but this time it went into the BusyBox error thing.

I really can not afford to lose how my operating is set up because I use it for school and a lot of my school stuff is on there. I somehow figured out how to get the terminal in Linux to compile and run Java problems. If you could tell me how to set that up again I have no issue reinstalling Ubuntu and losing everything i can redownload everything else i have on it even though it will take forever :(

Everything I have tried has failed.

  • I tried reinstalling Ubuntu
  • I tried sudo grub, it does not even know what sudo is anymore.
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Please attach a screenshot describing the error. – Lekensteyn Dec 22 '11 at 18:19

closed as too localized by Luis Alvarado♦ Mar 14 at 16:58

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1 Answer

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When you get a kernel panic and the LEDS (num/caps/scroll lock) on the keyboard are flashing, you need to hold the Power button for five seconds after which it will turn off.

It sounds that your filesystem has been corrupted somehow (perhaps after power loss / unclean shutdown). Usually, this should not cause much issues and a reboot should suffice.

Your files don't get deleted unless you suffer a hardware failure. Boot into a Live CD and confirm this.

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Better than press the power button is to hold down Ctrl+Alt+SysRq and type REISUB. – Anonymous Dec 22 '11 at 18:27
@Anonymous That does not work if there is a kernel panic in which all LEDS are flashing. – Lekensteyn Dec 22 '11 at 19:58

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