System crash

[tweev]

I have a dell 3400 and been running 11.10 for a few months and it's been great for the most part. Yesterday for some reason the computer was crashing because (I think) it was plugged into an external monitor but it wasn't a problem today. I don't really know what the issue was there.

Anyway, I got some sys. notifications about 12 security updates that needed to be installed. I installed them, the system asked for a reboot, I did that and the computer is DEAD. During bootup it stops and the '9' and 'A' lights just flash in unison. What the hell? I tried booting up in safe mode but same thing.

Do I have to do a fresh install? Can I at least log in with a bootable USB and hopefully make sure I have copies of all of my files?

Thanks for the help.

[Teunis]

Re: System crash

I don't know what caused your crash but there is no reason to believe your data is affected.

If you didn't already run a separate /home partition I would suggest you split one off now.
Or in other words, make a / (root) partition and reinstall, later you can move your /home/home stuff to the new /home.
Anyhow, a good reminder why back ups are essential.