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It looks like these two answers might help with my problem. However, in the second answer, they give instructions on what to do with partitions during an install in order to save personal files. I don't have the same partitions so I don't know how to follow the instructions. I have 

/dev/sda1 fat32 (size: 7699 MB used 65 MB)
/dev/sdc1 ext4 (size: 95912 MB used: 17550 MB Ubuntu 16.10 (16.10))
/dev/sdc5 swap (size: 192 MB used: unknown)

I'm using an ASUS. Advice?

How can I revert from 13.10 to 12.04? [duplicate]

Keeping the same /home partition after a clean install

Jennifer Hughes
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    Yours might not work as you don't have separate `/home` and `/root` dir from that tutorial... Please post the results of this `lsblk -l` command from the terminal into your post – George Udosen Apr 27 '17 at 05:08
  • What are you having problems with exactly? Having & making a backup of important files is always a good idea, just copying them onto a removable USB drive is usually good enough, just make sure they're readable – Xen2050 Apr 27 '17 at 05:14
  • @George I can't access the terminal. Will it work in grub? – Jennifer Hughes Apr 27 '17 at 05:15
  • Why can't you access the terminal, is there other information we should be working with? – George Udosen Apr 27 '17 at 05:18
  • @Xen2050 The 16.10 upgrade took away my ability to interact with the desktop other than alt+sysrq+ REISUB. I'm trying to install 16.04 again without losing my files. (I know, I know should've done backups, etc. Lesson learned) – Jennifer Hughes Apr 27 '17 at 05:20
  • A live ISO / dvd / usb should help with backups, just mount & copy (could even mount read-only / `ro` to be extra careful). I've read about ways to fix systems with a live iso too, they usually involve `chroot`but I don't know them offhand. After getting backups done I'd be tempted to just re-install whichever version you want, I don't think downgrading is very well tested & could make a separate home partition too, if interested – Xen2050 Apr 27 '17 at 05:30
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    Jennifer you situation is common, perhaps all that is required is re-installing you __desktop__. Please always post the full info. When you say can't __interact with the desktop__ what do you actually mean? – George Udosen Apr 27 '17 at 05:55
  • @George The mouse doesn't work, the touchpad doesn't work, the keyboard doesn't work. The only thing I can do is alt+sysrq+REISUB and look at my pretty wallpaper. I can reinstall 16.04 no problem. The trouble is doing it without losing all my files. – Jennifer Hughes Apr 27 '17 at 11:23
  • +1 to re-install desktop or window manager packages. Or it could be something's wrong with your user's home/config files too, creating a new user in a terminal (`sudo adduser newusername`) and then trying to login normally as newusername has worked for me when home files got messed up, then if it works copy over (& chown) some of the "good" files in newusername's home to your user's home – Xen2050 Apr 28 '17 at 10:54
  • @Xen2050 I tried live usb (16.04), I can't find the files from the 16.10 upgrade. Meaning, all my personal files, my stuffs. I looked in so many different places, I've lost track of where I looked. – Jennifer Hughes Apr 30 '17 at 06:42
  • That's disappointing, but maybe the right partition just wasn't mounted. `lsblk` can help show an overview of drives & partitions, with sizes & where they're mounted (if they are) but I like Disks (`gnome-disk-utility`) since it shows the filesystems too & mounts them with one click - **BUT** it can also **DELETE** them too so do be more careful. And searching for a known "home" file could help, or just the home folder name (almost always the user name). A nice GUI search like `catfish` or terminal `find / -iname "*partialname*"` but probably want to ignore error messages adding `2>/dev/null` – Xen2050 Apr 30 '17 at 09:48
  • @Xen2050 I saved the messed up 16.10 to an external hard drive. I installed 16.04 again, alongside 16.10. I found my files. They're in a directory that is labeled 255 GB Volume. It's listed as an external removable media. There's an eject button that just unmounts that "drive". I can access them, but they're not the "default" files. For example, to upload a photo online, clicking on upload image takes you to the default blank photo directory, instead of the directory that contains my photos, located in 255 GB Volume. How do I make that "drive" my regular, default drive? Does that make sense? – Jennifer Hughes May 15 '17 at 10:48
  • *I think* you want to either: change or make shortcuts to some folders (like photos) so they point at the external drive... may be as easy as dragging the new folder to the "places" or "shortcuts" menu (on the left?), or right-click and select "side pane (create shortcut). Or copy the backup files to your new home and work on them there. It can get complicated with files & folders scattered, but at least you've got a backup now, a lot easier to read a backup than to do recovery if something goes wrong :-) – Xen2050 May 18 '17 at 12:03

1 Answers1

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Here's what I ended up doing (with the help of Xen2050):

  1. Cloned (using Clonezilla- http://clonezilla.org/downloads.php) the messed up 16.10 onto an external hard drive (just in case).
  2. Installed 16.04 again, alongside the messed up 16.10.
  3. The "home" files (they were not named as such, I just had to go in and look at a couple to determine that these were what I was looking for) from the original 16.04 were listed as an external media device (it was listed as "255 GB Volume"). I mounted this drive.
  4. I then dragged and dropped the files into the corresponding folders on the fresh 16.04 install.
  5. I deleted some of the included software that I didn't want (rhythm box, libre office, etc.) and added ones that I had previously, before everything went to crap (inkscape, chrome, etc.).

Precautionary measures that I took for the future:

  1. Set up the system backup to save to my Dropbox account.
  2. Cloned the "255 GB Volume" drive to an external hard drive (just in case).
  3. Deleted the "255 GB Volume" drive from my computer.
  4. Cloned the fresh, working 16.04 install (with all my files) to an external hard drive.
  5. Deleted the messed up 16.10 demon from my computer.

Lessons Learned:

  1. Don't install xx.10 upgrades.
  2. Install xx.04 upgrades alongside the working system.
  3. Test out new upgrades before committing.
  4. Have online backup of system.
  5. Have external hard drive backup of system.
  6. Keep a clean, live iso of current version.

Final Thoughts: "Not today, Satan! Not today!"

Jennifer Hughes
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