Ubuntu laptop cannot boot anymore. ssd corrupt?

[guifra]

Hello,

I had my laptop for 3 weeks now and it s been working great. So today I travelled to a remote place, prepared to used it to work from there.
But when I arrived, it already started to behave strangely. Using Ubuntu 17.10, it loaded with a blue background, no icons displayed. I could open the console, but any attempt to open a window would result in a session reset.
I then tried to set nomodeset in grub, but now things are even more worrying, as I cannot boot at all. Even removing nomodeset from grub commands won't help.

I only have intermittent internet via my phone, and uploading an image from it seems tricky, so will try and link a screenshot in following message

 

[guifra]

I m having troubles uploading an image from where I am, but I m hoping this link will display it correctly:
https://mediatag.io/gui/items/cb0b231f

 

[Oussebon]

Does it behave the same with Ubuntu run live off a USB pen?

 

[guifra]

I should also add that while I just travelled, it was a very smooth flight, so I m hoping this cannot be the reason the drive broke.

But in any case, if you can think of ways to fix this, I d love to hear you

 

[guifra]

Thanks for your reply.
I have no idea, I only have my laptop and phone with me unfortunately

 

[guifra]

Okay, I managed to go back to the first state where I can boot but gnome (or something else) logs me out whenever I open a window apart from konsole.

What I did was going into the 4th recovery mode, reset grub and then boot. Note that all other recovery modes didn't seem to work, and I still have to do those steps to boot. A normal boot attempt will still lead to something looking like the previous screenshot.

So now here are screenshots of what I see (no icons)

https://mediatag.io/gui/items/88c08489

https://mediatag.io/gui/items/ea16d59b

 

[ubuysa]

That doesn't look like a hardware issue to me, I'd do no more until you can test Oussebon's suggestion of running off install media. That will confirm that your hardware is fine.

 

[Stephen M]

There have been problems with certain Ubunto 17.10 iso images, mostly causing BIOS failures but it would help if you get a new image and try from that, live first and if it works I would suggest a fresh install, you can find a bit about it here: https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=showheadline&story=5128

 

[guifra]

Ok, it s solved.

Turns out it was a combination of problems. Not having internet (or more specifically tethering was blocked by my phone provider) prevented me to do an update. As if one was done only partially and maybe corrupted. But that s only a guess.

All in all, an apt update fixed the problem (once I got my phone provider to unblock me, that is)

Thanks a lot for your suggestions, guys. I would have certainly tried the usb live if I could access one from where I am now.