hello.
i have the problem that my computer gets stuck during boot. when i turn it on, it asks me for my firmware password which i enter, and it starts booting. so far so normal. but at some point it stops booting and i find myself looking at a prompt that says (initramfs).
when booting from an external HD i can run disks which tells me “disk is ok, 40 bad sectors”.
the internal HD (the one with the problem) has AFAIK 23.10 on it and the external one (which i am using now) has 24.04
so what can i do? can i repair this disk? can i get my files back?
Moved to the Support and Help category.
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Have you tried to mount the problem disk to your 24.04 external boot session? You can try this from the gui or from command line. Command line would be better for these issues if you know how to do that…
It is more important to first see if you can access the drive to backup your files vs. trying to get that 23.10 disk to boot, or attempting other disk utilities. BTW, 23.10 support stopped July 2024.
in the disks utility i can mount the 2.1GB partition which contains some system files, AFAICT. the files i want to recover are on the 999GB partition which i can’t access 
i have a backup on a NAS which also gives me problems:
i load deja dup and click on restore from a previous backup
under location i select network server
under server address i enter nfs://192.168.1.8
under folder i enter /Backups/Ubuntu
i click search, and after a second or 2 it says “mount point does not exist.”
what am i doing wrong?
When you reach the initramfs prompt, type exit
Any messages?
yeah, i get lots of messages, but i can’t repeat them here because this site refuses to work on my tablet. WHAT’S UP WITH THAT?
anyway, it looks like there is one block of messages that is repeated several times as the computer tries to boot, but it won’t be long before i look at that initramffs prompt again
Are you able to take a screenshot or photo of the errors that you can upload?
i can take a screenshot, but like i said, this site doesn’t work on my tablet, so how can i upload it?
Perhaps use a free image hosting site?
Then paste the link back in the post.
For most folks, images are trivial to upload. The option is right there in your compose window.
We cannot solve your tablet problem with the information given (i.e. none).
All I can tell you is that this site, including the compose window options, works properly using Firefox on my tablet.
/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv contains a file system with errors
You probably need to run a file system check and repair (via a live session) on your volumes.
I know you can use fsck for ext4 file systems but I do not know the syntax for volume groups (vg) and logical volumes (lv)
It’s advisable to backup your personal files before attempting any repair
You can manually run the file system check (fsck) on the affected volume. This can be done by booting into a recovery environment or using a live USB. Once you have access to the system, you can run the following command:
fsck /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv
This command will check and repair the file system errors. if that don’t help check your LVM config:
less /etc/lvm/lvm.conf
Your in good hands with @tea-for-one 
1 Like
That’s very kind
I’ve got a brown paper envelope, holdin’ foldin’, how much do you need? 
> fsck /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv
that gives me the following output:
fsck from util-linux 2.40.2
e2fsck 1.47.2 (1-Jan-2025)
fsck.ext2: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/mapper/ubuntu–vg-ubuntu–lv~
Possibly non-existent device?
and when i say sudo fsck /dev/sda3
that gives me
fsck from util-linux 2.40.2
fsck: fsck.crypto_LUKS not found; ignore /dev/sda3
Power outage or a forced shutdown can most certainly throw a wobbly.
It makes no sense to attempt to run a filesystem checker on /dev/sdXY once it’s been encrypted, as apart from the LUKS header, the encrypted data should be essentially indistinguishable from random data.
mine:
less /etc/fstab|grep /dev/disk/by-id/dm
/dev/disk/by-id/dm-uuid-CRYPT-PLAIN-dm_crypt-0 none swap sw 0 0
This should explain why `/dev/sdXY is no good.
df -HT /dev/sdc3
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev devtmpfs 7.2G 0 7.2G 0% /dev
That is the swap area.
blkid | grep dm
/dev/mapper/dm_crypt-0: LABEL="dm_crypt-0" UUID="4b812e68-63fa-4a87-9d1f-d52ad336f3b8" TYPE="swap"
By chance have you tried to update your initramfs and that can run from Recovery at boot.
sudo cryptsetup -v status /dev/mapper/dm_crypt-0
/dev/mapper/dm_crypt-0 is active and is in use.
type: PLAIN
cipher: aes-cbc-essiv:sha256
keysize: 256 bits
key location: dm-crypt
device: /dev/sdc3
sector size: 512
offset: 0 sectors
size: 8388608 sectors
mode: read/write
Command successful.
I think I still owe you some don’t I? 