Upgraded pclos 2007 to 2010 now stuck at INIT: Entering runlevel 5

[EdgarAllenPoe]

Should have left well enough alone, but I upgraded my wife´s Dell C640.  Here is the story.  I was picking and choosing with Symantec various programs to update on a 2007 system. (I know your not supposed to do that now).  In the process of doing this I broke some other stuff and went into dependency hell.  So I ...
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
It chugs along for about an hour.  After it´s done I check out the progs that were broken and they work fine then I go for the reboot.
On reboot it hangs right after INIT: Enterning runlevel: 5
So I force a runlevel 3 at boot...same thing except with runlevel 3
I force a runlevel 2 ... same
I force a runlevel 1 ... no more processes to run...hangs
Booted with noapic, same results.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[YouCanToo]

Sorry.   There is no upgrade path from 2007 to the current.  You might consider waiting to the 2010 release, anytime now, and do a fresh install.  I am not sure that there will be anyway to recover from the issue you are having.

[EdgarAllenPoe]

Ok! let´s talk about survival then.  Can I boot with a live distro.... dump personal data off to a usb from the HD?  Or what would you suggest?

[Monkwarrior]

That sounds like a plan indeed.
Any livecd from any distro will do for that IMO.

Monk.

[Hootiegibbon]

EdgarAllenPoe,

Ok so you have done a couple of things incorrectly, as you have stated selective piecemeal upgrades will come and bite ya.

The fact you acknowledge this means you are learning.

While there is no certain way to try and upgrade from a piecemeal 2007 install there is the smallest chance that if you get the whole shebang and update it it may - just may work as who know what you were able to update wnd when

I would use the LiveCD to rescue all your personal data just in case'

Then if you want to try and save the install in the meantime, boot up and when you are faced with the text login, do so and try the following string of commands.

init 3 && apt-get clean && apt-get autoclean && apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade && init 5
 
This will clean up the apt caches update whats available and update the install.

Its worth a try

The other option is to wait a few weeks for the 2010 iso and reinstall, as this will have to be done for the 2010 release anyway.

Jase

[EdgarAllenPoe]

Thanks Monk, and Hootiegibbon

It has indeed been a learning experience.   Hootie, I would love to be "faced with a login text", but I´m not even getting that far in the boot process.  Could this be a kernel issue?  I´m going to back up the data and would like to now go deep into the bows of Linux and see if this machine can be salvaged.  At least until my wife says she HAS TO have here computer back.  Any deep guru like ideas to save this machine?

I am looking forward to the new distro.  I hope it sees my wifi and graphics "out of the box"

[Hootiegibbon]

EdgarAllenPoe,

While booting try hitting the <esc> key and let us know what the last few lines read as.

Jase

[Old-Polack]

EdgarAllenPoe:

 Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
 Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
 While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
 As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
 'Twas only you, who was reporting, trashing your OS of yore.
 Only this, and nothing more.

Truthfully, I had hoped for something far more epic, and profound in scope.

[EdgarAllenPoe]

Ok Guys, I´m going to let the wife run a live distro till I get around to the new installation.  A couple of links on the new desktop linking to her old one.  Email and other stuff in the cloud.  Where is that magic button on the live distro that sets up persistence for you automatically?  Oh yea it´s linux.

Old Polack you must be confusing me with my great grand father Edgar Allan Poe.  I am a lesser know Poe who wrote this.

There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it - I paused to think - what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of a scary forum moderator

I will be back with the results of the esc key experiment as you suggested Hootie

[kjpetrie]

Will it boot into failsafe? If so, you could try running hootiegibbon's command from there, leaving off the init 3 as you're already at a root terminal.

If you haven't got failsafe in your menu, try hitting F2 at the Grub menu and typing 1.