Start Up Problems [after kernel update]

[cesera]

I am running kubuntu 13.04 64 bit on my son's laptop. Yesterday evening there was a kernel update (linux-headers* and linux-image*) which I installed. Then when he tried to start it up this morning he ended up with a black screen where the login should have been. After restarting the machine it now hangs at a screen with the following text:

Begin: Loading essential drivers ... done
Begin: Running /scripts/init-premount ... done
Begin: Mounting root file system ... Begin: Running /script/local-top ... done

(Those last two statements are really on one line.)

I have tried going into the recovery mode, but that gives the same result. Also I expected the old kernel still to be available in Grub, but it doesn't seem to. I am not even sure the kernel update is the problem, but it was the last update I ran.

I am reasonably capable sorting problems on linux, it is just that I have no experience with start up problems like this.

Any help is much appreciated.

[cesera]

OK, I managed to get it working again, but have no idea why this works.

I booted of a live USB stick, and had a look a the /etc/fstab file (on a hunch as the problem seemed to be with mounting the filesystem). I noticed in the comments that /dev/sda1 had been /dev/sdb1 during installation, so completely illogically I changed the file to use /dev/sda1,2 and 5 instead of UUIDs. Then I rebooted the computer and all started working again.

As I said it doesn't make sense why that should fix things, but it did, so for now I'm leaving it as it is.