SA - I'm sorry to have to bother you again, but I am in a desperate situation here.
Due to some really dumb, impulsive decisions I made, I have apparently damaged some system files, rendering me unable to get into my OS.
I have posted this issue on the Ubuntu forums, but have not received any answers there, that help.
I have a feeling you can provide an answer to this.
The problem started when I was using Synaptic Manager in Ubuntu on a PC.
I was attempting to remove some previous system updates that I did not want.
During this process, I must have inadvertently checked the wrong box(es), and I noticed in the status box that it was installing some things I did not want so I hit "cancel". I assumed this would cut off everything. But strangely the status box then indicated that it was removing several important things that I did not want to be removed, so as a knee-jerk moment, I literally reached for the plug, and unplugged the machine completely from the outlet
I must have done some damage to critical system files, either while in Synaptic Manager, or due to my "sudden forced crash" of the PC during that process, because now I am completely unable to log into the system.
When I reboot or start the PC amd get to the login page, type in the password, the screen then flashes as if it's going to log me in, but then it returns back to the log in page. I know it's not an incorrect password issue, because there's no message about that, in fact no error message at all. It basically just refreshes back to the log-in screen. I also tried to log in as a Guest, but I get the same response.
So I must have inadvertently deleted some necessary system files.
I do not want to have to do a complete re-install because I will lose a lot of important, unsaved data.
When I reboot, there is an option to into recovery mode, which gives me these options
- Clean
- Repair Broken Packages
- Run in failsafe graphic mode
- Check all file systems
- Update grub bootloader
- Enable networking
- Drop to root shell prompt
- System Summary
I've gone through just about every one of those options and it appears to go through an update process without any issues, but then when I attempt to reboot, I have the exact same issue at login.
Is there something I'm doing wrong in the recovery ?
Or is there another method, whether it be manual commands, to repair broken or missing system files ?
Also, I originally used WUBI to install dual OS, both Windows and Ubuntu . Is there a way to use a "Repair" option using that installation file ?
And if there's no possibility to repair the system, is there a way that I can backup my files, without having to login (since I'm unable to do so), and then do just a new install ?