reinstall ubuntu urgent

[Basil Chupin]

On 08/05/12 16:06, Joep L. Blom wrote:
> On 08-05-12 02:42, Basil Chupin wrote:
>> On 08/05/12 08:18, Joep L. Blom wrote:
>>> On 08-05-12 00:01, William Scott Lockwood III wrote:
>>>> On May 7, 2012 4:54 PM, "Joep L. Blom" <jlblom at neuroweave.nl
>>>> <mailto:jlblom at neuroweave.nl>> wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > Memory checked also completely clean. However, all kind of read
>
>
>>
>>
>> What I suggest is that perhaps the file system is corrupted - nothing
>> wrong with the HDD but the file system is stuffed. I assume that you are
>> using ext4 or ext3 as your file system?
>>
>> The thing I would do is to boot into level 1 (init 1 at the grub menu
>> when booting) and doing the e2fsck check on the partition where your
>> system is installed. Seeing as how you also have a separate partition
>> for your home then do same for it.
>>
>> But first read up on how to do this e2fsck check - you cannot do it on a
>> partition which is mounted (unless you are prepared to possibly end up
>> with even a bigger mess :-( .)
>>
>> BC
>>
> Basil,
> Thanks for you answer. I think you're right. I had run fsck several 
> times and every time it repaired the corrupt inodes. However, after I 
> restarted the system it ran for some  time and then the same problems 
> occurred again. I had thought to repair it by upgrading to 12.04 but 
> during that process the installation hung and I have a half installed 
> 12.04 so I think I have to install a completely new system. However, I 
> haven't found out how to install the new system and keep my home 
> partition. If you can give me some help with that I would be very 
> grateful. I think also that I won't install 11.10 but 12.04 after I 
> have used Unetbootin for storing it on an USB-stick.
> Joep

The only way I know of retaining the /home directory is to use the 
manual  - ie, NOT allow the installation process to determine what has 
to be done - option when it gets to the point about which partitions you 
want to install the new system to. Use the manual approach and select 
the old "/" to be formatted so that the new system will get installed 
into this but do NOT allow the existing /home partition to be formatted. 
All this usually can be done by using the option in this part of the 
installation process (the selection of the partitions) by Importing the 
current partition table and then editing it - as per what I just wrote: 
format the "/" partition and mount it as "/" but do *not* format the 
"/home" partition but leave it as mountable as "/home". Oh, and leave 
"swap" alone as well.

Of course, it would be most prudent to backup whatever important data 
you have in your /home (I always backup, daily in fact) the /.mozilla 
and the /.thunderbird directories which I certainly don't want to lose, 
and backup any files in Documents and Downloads etc which are special 
(like family pictures etc) - the rest are not important as they can be 
replaced by downloading them from the 'net.

(If you don't already have an external HDD then get one so that you can 
do these backups in the future. If you don't have such destination then 
burn what you don't want to lose to a CD/DVD - which in your current 
case you probably won't be able to do [I don't know if you could this if 
you had a System Rescue CD - perhaps somebody could advise on this 
one?]. If you a USB memory stick(s) use these to backup as much as you can.)

BC