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I've got a fairly old desktop (from 2008) with just Ubuntu 14.04 (no dual boot). I haven't booted up this machine in about a year anymore and I now wanted to start it up again to backup all the pictures that I've got on there. But I seem to be too late; it doesn't boot anymore. When I turn it on I see the following screens appear (in order):

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and then it ends with this black screen with just the blinking cursor and nothing happens anymore. I let it in this state for about half an hour, but really.. nothing happens anymore.

Seeing it says no any drive found in the second screen, I rebooted and pressed del te enter the bios, of which I took some pics of screens which I thought could be helpful:

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As you can see I've got two hard drives in there. One is the drive on which Ubuntu is installed, and the other I used to store all my pictures.

And from here I'm kinda lost. Does anybody know what I can do to boot this machine into Ubuntu again? All tips are welcome!

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  • You have 2 PHYSICAL drives in the computer, or 3? If you only have the 2, are they setup as a hardware RAID, or 2 separate drives? Instead of one drive for Ubuntu and one drive for pictures, could it be 1 partition for Ubuntu and 1 partition for pictures?
    – heynnema
    Aug 7, 2016 at 21:32

2 Answers 2

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Right now, you are facing, in fact, two problems, not one. Firstly, you need to save those files, and secondly, you need to make that PC to boot again.

For your first problem, I think that an emergency solution would be a live stick. That means that you buy an USB stick, you go to one of your friends, you buy him a beer and a good book to keep him busy, and you use his PC to create a live USB stick (that means that you have a Linux distro in your pocket). Then, you boot your own PC from that USB stick, go to your files, save them in online in cloud (Google Drive or Dropbox), or on another stick.

And as for your second problem, here is my suggestion. I had the same problem. If you can, try to undust your PC and check out your cables. Maybe your hard drive is not connected very well, and your system simply cannot see it. Otherwise, I think it would be wise to take it to the service for a check. It may be a hardware-related problem.

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If you have another computer, I suggest making an Ubuntu installation disk to try reinstalling Ubuntu. If you don't have a CD-drive, you can do the procedure with a USB stick. Here's a link to Ubuntu's installation files:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

After doing that, boot from the CD. If it doesn't work, try factory resetting your computer.

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  • His primary concern is to backup his pictures. You don't start trying to make changes, like trying to reinstall Ubuntu, when the hardware is telling you it's not finding the drives.
    – heynnema
    Aug 7, 2016 at 21:36

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