0

Two days ago I turned my Dell PC on as usual. I saw the Dell logo and then a strange white screen testing my hardware. I thought maybe this is what it does from time to time, but when it finished it came with the results that all hardware if ok but there is no OS in the system so it prompted me to use any OS! That was it; I’m without OS!

The day before; I worked normally (Ubuntu 17.10) but the machine was really busy updating things and from time to time it prompted me to restart and everything went fine. The last bunch of updates prompted me that not ALL the updates can be installed due to some 3rd party issues! So, it gave me an option to “partially update”. I chose this option and it seems that this was one wrong choice. I have been using Windows my whole life and only just started using Ubuntu 3 months ago, so I didn't know what could happen.

My files are there and the machine is now nothing but a paper weight. Anyway, using the very valuable help of @lumbeezl I salvaged my files, set a USB flash stick for installing Ubuntu again. I tried hard to get it installed without formatting the system but it refused, so I had no choice but to format the HD.

I want you to help me with answering these questions:

  1. Is this something normal with Ubuntu? Do you just wake up one day without an OS now and then?
  2. What did I do wrong?
  3. How can I try to prevent something like this from happening again?

Any feedback you can give me would be appreciated.

PS: My Dell machine is brand new and it came with Ubuntu (16.04) pre-installed on it. All through the 3 months of its lifetime it had never managed to get a single "report" through and always giving me the same prompt:

We can’t get this report through because of some 3rd party program, remove any 3rd party programs and try again.

1 Answer 1

0

Thanks for the shoutout. It's highly appreciated. So to answer your questions:

  1. No, it's not normal. No that has never happened to me.
  2. I'm not sure why it didn't fully install any updates, but I've never had a machine that came pre-installed with Ubuntu.
  3. If you install directly and format the drive, you shouldn't have any issues if done correctly.

If you'd like help to install the system, just message me and I could help.

PS: You'd most likely have to format the drive, but if you got all your data off it that you wanted, that wouldn't be an issue.

4
  • Thanks a lot for all your help, yes I already got all my data out and installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu 17.10 and the only way to do it was by formatting my drive. The system is up again but I have really cold feet about trusting it again. I guess it will take time. I was just looking in the "logs" now and I found various issues; not sure how serious they are but if you can help with sorting them out I'd be indebted to you. I can start messaging you about these issues one by one and you can just take your time to help me with them, if you can. Feb 9, 2018 at 8:23
  • 1
    Yeah. I can do that. Just send me what you have, and I'll help best I can.
    – Lumbeezl
    Feb 10, 2018 at 1:46
  • Thanks a lot for your kindness, can you pls identify the best way for messaging you? Do I just post my questions here in this thread or do you prefer any other way? Thanks. Feb 10, 2018 at 5:39
  • 1
    Just email me. [email protected]
    – Lumbeezl
    Feb 11, 2018 at 6:41

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .