With today’s update ( Ubuntu 19.10 ) my display no longer shuts off. Before the update it would shut off/go to sleep whatever the term, after about 20 minutes.
I can’t find anything in settings to fix that, often I see to click activities/settings/power settings, but I have no activities in upper left corner.
The power button in the lower left of the screen is no longer working neither. Pretty much, I can no longer reboot it. All after this most recent update. Is there a way to go back?
That mostly depends on your setup, but in general the answer is yes, you can go back to “before upgrade” on the package version level. The easiest would be with snap, do you have it set up? Most recent Ubuntu installs do. You can check if you do by executing:
$ sudo snap list
If you get a list back, you may try to revert the upgrade with that. Another would be a manual way of checking what packages where upgraded, and revert to those versions that worked fine.
What I did ( Which resulted in hitting a hornets nest/Opening a can of worms ), was to restore the version from before the update. It worked, but for some reason it added 5 partitions to the hard drive. I tried everything I could Google to delete them, Ubuntu gave warnings the partitions were corrupted and couldn’t be removed. I’m now waiting for a replacement hard drive.
On a side note here, anyone know of a way to totally format the corrupted hard drive? I’ve tried DBAN & KillDisk, both do what they are supposed to do, but only for that individual partition. The 4 remaining partitions are still on the hard drive and won’t be deleted.
You can format your HDD with fdisk, removing all and any partition, essentially whipping the disk - but you should not touch the partition your system is running from. But if you insert the HDD into an already running system with another hard drive, or boot into a live system, there should be no issue with clearing everything from that disk. We have a guide on managing partitions to get you started. Double-check everything before deleting partitions!
I tried fdisk, it left the partitions untouched, like each partition is a separate hard drive. I attempted removal of each…with no luck. My master plan is to install a fresh new hard drive, install the OS. Then install the bad hard drive as a slave, try formatting again. Will it work? I’m open for other ideas. I just can’t get the partitions to go away. Currently there is no OS on it, Once I got the initial error and partitions, I tried to upgrade Ubuntu with mint, it just added more partitions I can’t delete.
If there is no OS on it, you could try format it by booting into a live image, then clear the disk from the installation software. Do make a backup if there is any data on that disk of worth.
I thought that too…fdisk from a live disk, but it continued to present partition errors. I’m not worried about any stored data, I just want to be able to install either Ubuntu or Mint error free.
I got my new hard drive today, I thought it would be clear sailing, just adjust the BIOS and start installing. Boy, was I wrong.
If I use the Mint loaded on the USB, I get the error message of no OS, which I knew because it’s a brand new hard drive. But it also adds the error of no bootable device found. That made no sense.
If I go back into BIOS, switch it to the CD/DVD drive, and load Mint from there I get the following message:
GRUB4DOS 0.4.5b 2010-11-24. Mem: 618k/511m/4832M End: 34D570
[ Minimal Bash-like line eding is supported. For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible completions of a device/filename ]
What’s that all about? I’m really lost now. I thought with a fresh hard drive I’d be good to go.
That could very well be, I have one Ubuntu DVD, One Mint DVD, and a Mint Cinnamon USB, all purchased through Amazon. I’m currently downloading my own copy of Cinnamon, just to verify.
I was also thinking it may be the new hard drive, thinking it may be defective. I’m losing faith in anything I get from Amazon.
To be honest, I never bought anything from Amazon so far, so I have no perspective on the matter. But the new hard drive could not be an issue if you are not booting from it. If you do, then there is something preinstalled on it, which is not a problem in itself, but in this case you still not booting from the external media you intend to boot from.
I have bigger problems now, I’m starting to think I may have MoBo issues. If I go into BIOS to adjust boot order, once I exit and it reboots, BIOS can’t find any boot devices. I could have it boot from hard drive/CD/USB, it makes no difference…it can’t find anything.
What are your thoughts…Motherboard? Could it need an updated BIOS? I don’t know how I would do that, Pretty much I can’t go to Dell and get one, it has no OS.
Or am I up the creek? I priced a refurbished MoBo, under $60, the laptop still sells for over $200, so I don’t want to just trash it.
If you where able to boot with another HDD and you can’t with the one you try to use now, it would be only logical to guess it is the HDD that does not work properly. Jumper issue maybe?
I got a brand new hard drive today, exactly the same as the original, I ordered from NewEgg.
I put it in the laptop, first I loaded my Mint CD…I got that grub message.
I put in the Ubuntu CD, it loaded, went through all the right motions, prompted me to remove the CD, because a reboot is required. I rebooted, and got the flashing cursor in upper right corner.
I’m thinking some how there is some crap stored in memory, Would that be possible? Should I remove the memory/battery?
It’s a fresh hard drive, and when I load Ubuntu, it asks me if I want to load it next to Mint or format. Naturally I go for the fresh format. But the hard drive has never had mint loaded on it, I never got that far.
I am not sure I can follow the situation correctly. On reboot the memory is wiped perfectly, so nothing can stay in there, because without electricity the memory looses it’s state. This can’t be an issue.
But there is something that does store the boot information: do your laptop use UEFI?
I agree, something isn’t right. I run the diagnostics, everything checks out perfectly. Each form of media loads differently whether it be USB or DVD.
I do have UEFI, but don’t understand it, when I did get the balls to try it, it gave me the message No boot devices found.
If I use Legacy in BIOS sometimes it loads, sometimes not.
If I use the DVD I get that grub message, this is why I was wondering about removing the battery/memory for a day. Somewhere, something is storing previous installations. By previous, I mean before the new hard drives. So far as I know, I Googled & asked Dell…there are no jumpers on the hard drive.
I’ve also restet BIOS to factory defaults, I removed the battery…Motherboard Battery & main battery as well as removed memory. Just in case something somewhere is storing it…I feel that should fix what ails it, I’ll let you know tomorrow… I want to be sure everything is sufficiently drained.
Okay, I guess I’m a big old dork. After buying 2 new hard drives, installing three bajillion times and nothing worked, I went back to one of your earlier posts. I downloaded a fresh version of Mint, and so far, knock on wood, everything is fine. One nice think, I now have a 1TB harddrive.
I am happy that the issue seems to be solved. And don’t think it’s a waste what you did: 1 TB disk is sure convenient, and at least you practiced installation.
So from all the symptoms my guess would be that the UEFI was messed up somehow, which the fresh Mint (not intentional pun) was able to clear, and fill with it’s own working entry.