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Yesterday I had a lot of Java applications open that were eating into my RAM. I'm a Java developer so what I usually do in such situations is just reboot. I closed all the apps and did a shutdown. On booting, I was dropped into an initramfs prompt. Screenshot: https://i.sstatic.net/6oTGb.jpg

initramfs is something I had no clue about, so I just did an exit: https://i.sstatic.net/RT7Ez.jpg

The suggestion was to run fsck on the mentioned filesystem, which I did: https://i.sstatic.net/3MEKS.jpg The last line here appears to be the one that causes the mess that follows. Typing y for yes and my entire screen becomes a top-to-bottom infinite scrolling random numbers: https://i.sstatic.net/HLRD7.jpg

How do I get back control of my computer?

UPDATE: Screenshots of the SMART Data -- https://i.sstatic.net/GQPAB.jpg and https://i.sstatic.net/rQqlL.jpg

Zero
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3 Answers3

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re: "I was dropped into an initramfs prompt on boot with the message dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root contains a file system with errors, check forced... do a manual fsck."

At the initramfs prompt, type:

fsck -f /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root # check the file system

Update #1:

Note: fsck failed to resolve problems

  • boot to a Ubuntu Live DVD/USB
  • select the "Try Ubuntu" option
  • once to the desktop, start the Disks app
  • select the target disk in the left pane
  • click on the "hamburger" icon and select SMART Data & Tests
  • take screenshots of the SMART Data and edit them into your question so I can review them
  • run the SMART tests

Note: SMART Data looks fine. HDD is not suspect at this time

Update #2:

  • whilst booted to the Ubuntu Live DVD/USB, backup whatever data you might still be able to find, to an external source
  • start terminal and type: sudo dmidecode -s bios-version and then visit the manufacturer's web site and check for a newer BIOS
  • start gparted and lay down a fresh GPT partition table (this will wipe the disk)
  • reinstall Ubuntu (no real need for LVM)
  • run fsck
  • restore data
  • set up Deja Dup (Backups) to backup to an external source (not /home)

Update #3:

Do regular fscks for a while...

  • boot to a Ubuntu Live DVD/USB
  • open a terminal window
  • type sudo fdisk -l
  • identify the /dev/XXXX device name for your "Linux Filesystem"
  • type sudo fsck -f /dev/XXXX # replacing XXXX with the number you found earlier
  • repeat the fsck command if there were errors
  • type reboot
heynnema
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  • I would suggest to check smart data first. If the drive in question is broken, and user has no backup, it's better to attempt to make an image of the device without other activity. – vidarlo Jun 09 '19 at 17:51
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    @vidarlo That's exactly what we're doing. – heynnema Jun 09 '19 at 17:52
  • My thanks. I report that I now have a working system and all steps in #2 were followed. Data restore was from a one week old backup on another computer on the local network, and Deja Dup is now doing daily backups to that same computer via SSH. All my code was under Git repositories so for those files, it was a matter of git pull from Github. – Zero Jun 10 '19 at 18:58
  • @Duos Good news! Did the BIOS check find anything? Keep a close eye for disk errors. If you don't have smartmontools installed, you should do that asap. Keep good backups, as we don't really know what caused your problem. Do regular fsck's for a while. See Update #3. – heynnema Jun 10 '19 at 19:07
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The following steps worked for me:

  1. Create a bootable pen drive and go to Try Ubuntu.

  2. Open the terminal and run the following command:

    $ sudo fsck -f <your_drive_name>

  3. Type a when asked and let it run for 4-5 minutes.

  4. Once exited normally after the successful run of previous steps, reboot the system.

ThunderBird
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Rahul Dev Gupta
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Having a partition with Windows, Grub displays at start-up. When I had the numbers scrolling issue I just pressed power off, then on again and opted for "Advanced options for Ubuntu" the on "recovery mode" and it sorted the issue for me after checking/repairing the damaged partition.

user114242
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