Author Topic: Ubuntu help  (Read 949 times)

Ubuntu help
« on: 09 March, 2021, 06:13:20 pm »
When switching off my ancient Acer laptop running 14.04LTS today, as normal, it took a while longer and some b&w text flashed up on the screen in a non-desktop environment. Strange, thought I. I wasn't able to read the text unfortunately.


Anyhoo, now it won't power up. The power and battery lights illuminate, the optical drive whirrs, but otherwise nada. The screen is blank and it just sits there doing nothing.


First of all, any ideas what might have happened?
Secondly, how might this clueless Ubuntu user do something about it?
Thirdly, if it's totally borked, what chance do I have of retrieving stuff from the SSD?


TIA
Haggerty F, Haggerty R, Tomkins, Noble, Carrick, Robson, Crapper, Dewhurst, Macintyre, Treadmore, Davitt.

Re: Ubuntu help
« Reply #1 on: 09 March, 2021, 06:53:58 pm »
Check inside for anything loose. Remove ram, then refit. If you have another ram, try that.

One time I accidentally let my laptop battery go flat and the laptop turned itself off. Then it would not start, the power led came on but nothing else, I thought oh shit!! It turned out a prong on the slider power switch had broke and wasn't moving the actual switch on the motherboard.

Take hard drive/ssd out, and connect it to another computer using a SATA to USB cable. You should be able to copy your files to another drive, unless it's encrypted.
 
Create a system rescue disk and run that.

vorsprung

  • Opposites Attract
    • Audaxing
Re: Ubuntu help
« Reply #2 on: 09 March, 2021, 09:35:04 pm »
if I was you I'd boot it from a USB stick

I do not endorse these instructions https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/create-a-usb-stick-on-ubuntu#1-overview but it is ubuntu.com


Re: Ubuntu help
« Reply #3 on: 10 March, 2021, 08:31:22 am »
The problems I have there are 1) I have no access to any other machine and 2) I am utterly clueless about Ubuntu other than as a user.
Haggerty F, Haggerty R, Tomkins, Noble, Carrick, Robson, Crapper, Dewhurst, Macintyre, Treadmore, Davitt.

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: Ubuntu help
« Reply #4 on: 10 March, 2021, 09:26:12 am »
If it doesn't even get as far as displaying the BIOS screen, then it's a hardware problem and nothing to do with ubuntu.
You won't be able to boot with a USB stick or anything else unless you can get at least as far as the BIOS.

As has been said, removing the drive and connecting it to another machine with the appropriate USB cable is the way to recover data, unless it's encrypted.

Re: Ubuntu help
« Reply #5 on: 10 March, 2021, 10:36:00 am »
Buy another laptop of exactly the same make and model, put your hard drive/ssd into that.  That has worked for me when my laptop had I think a dead motherboard. 

If it doesn't, the second laptop will let you copy off your files.


Re: Ubuntu help
« Reply #6 on: 10 March, 2021, 01:31:14 pm »
Funnily enough I had thought of buying a replacement. It was in my eBay basket, so bought today. I noticed yesterday that the Acer was 11 years old, so I can't complain.
Haggerty F, Haggerty R, Tomkins, Noble, Carrick, Robson, Crapper, Dewhurst, Macintyre, Treadmore, Davitt.

Afasoas

Re: Ubuntu help
« Reply #7 on: 10 March, 2021, 05:02:24 pm »
Does the backlight on the display come on? (check for illumination in a darkened room)
Does that hard disk drive activity light flash?

It is possible that is might be booting, but the display has failed or become disconnected.
If you have a display output on the laptop and an external monitor, it might be work acquainting them with each other.
Alternatively, try pinging the laptop (if you know it's hostname and have firewall disabled?) over the network.

Also, try disconnecting the battery if you haven't done so already.