Ubuntu 10.04 hangs on boot while checking battery state; how to recover my data?
Solution 1:
Did you try using an Ubuntu LiveCD to boot into live mode? The system will run from your RAM and the data on your hard disk will remain untouched, as far as I know. You can then connect an external drive to copy and backup your data before you do anything else.
For the future, please spend a little more time wording your question and do a regular backup, for example with CrasPlan Backup.
Solution 2:
- Yes, reinstalling will wipe everything in your hard disk drive BUT ONLY IF YOU CHOOSE IT to do so. I mean, during the OS's Install you will be prompted to choose if you wish to install side by side, wipe the previous install or something else. If you choose to wipe it out we can say goodbye to your data. If you choose to install it side by side you will be asked to determine the partition's size of your new install. Of course, the hard disk drive free space should be enough to include a new install (at least 4GB in my experience). This will also install a bootloader which may solve your boot problem in the current damaged install, which takes me to the second point:
- I don't have a fix for your problem, sorry. Nevertheless, I suggest you to run a search in this site for "fixing bootloader", "grub fix" and these things in order to get further details on how to fix your boot problems.
- We can say for sure that the data is right there but you can't acces it because of the OS won't boot. So, if you use a Live CD/USB Session you should be able to recover your data, copy and back it up in a different hard disk drive and redo from scratch with a new installation when you are satisfied with the backup results. This process of "booting via live session" won't harm your data just if you use a Ubuntu OS for the process, I can't guarantee it for sure if you use a different OS.
Please let us know how are you managing this issue. I'll be around tomorrow in order to provide some support if needed but some other excellent supporters are by here.
Good luck!