New to Linux: What command should I use for recovering Pop OS?

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I have a 3 year old System76 laptop running Pop OS and it has crashed. Was using Brave and it locked up. A message appeared that said to close and re-open Brave and try again.Tried that and got the same message again. Clicked on Proton Mail and Proton Pass and got messages that said something was missing in the system-don’t remember the name. Re-booted the computer and got this message. BusyBox v 1.3.1(Ubuntu1:1.31.-7 ubuntu3.1)built in shell(ash) Enter"help" for a list of built in commands. Entered help and got the following. (initramfs) Built in commands: A command with 131 words. What command should I give it to activate that command? Thanks for any help you can give me, need to get this running ASAP.

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When I get up against that kind of a brick wall, I usually flush and reinstall the OS. But then I have everything backed up on an external drive. Be patient, one of the kind folks (smarter than me) will be along with helpful advice. I just know myself well enough to back things up before I mess something up.

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If you restart your system
Press the tab key

This should take you to advanced options
Select recovery mode
Then select
Fsck
Then
Dpkg

Each will offer further points you should agree to
fsck
Checks all file systems for errors and if found, attempts to repair the errors. Typically used when the laptop has experienced a sudden loss of power.
dpkg
Resumes any incomplete program installs. Typically used when an operating system upgrade is interrupted.
Exit from this menu by restarting your system
Test the applications again and let us know how you get on.

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I restarted the system, pressed tab and got 3 choices. Pop OS, Pop OS recovery and Reboot into firmware interface. I chose Pop OS recovery. when it was done and rebooted it was back where it started. I have nothing but a full screed terminal where I can type help and get a very large command. so what should I type in to run this command?

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If you select that are there any options available to you ?

Failing that
Do you have a usb with linux on that you can boot to ?
We can then try the 2 commands from that on your main hard disk

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I do have a usb with Pop OS on it but it’s 2 or 3 years old. Pop OS provides a copy on the hard disk and I updated it recently. Pop gave me a choice of replace or recovery. I chose recovery so I would not loose everything.
So now we have nothing but a terminal with built in commands. I would like to use the command that has been provided to fix the problem. I need to know what to type in to start the command running.

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This looks like GRUB configuration is messed, can’t load kernel, thus boot is impossible.

I’d try to boot from a live USB, and check the disk, not just fsck, but closely look at SMART.
If the disk is OK, fsck the system partition, then reinstall GRUB if it still does not boot.

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It does not matter the age (within reason) of your version of pop linux. As I only need it to boot from.

Some commands cannot be run from terminal on the current mounted disk and if you unmount you have to be on something else

Ok plan of action
Restart your system on your usb with pop on it
Once up and running

Go into terminal (from menu or ctrl t)

Now follow the information shown on this site
This displays the name of your hard disk (location)
Df command
Unmounts it
Unmount followed by location name
Then runs a fsck repair on your disk
Fsck location name using the y option to automatically repair errors

You change the disk name to suit what you discover on the df command at each stage

Because of the protection control of your system it needs to use sudo (super user) also you will be prompted for your password

Just before rebooting whilst still in terminal lets update your system in case of broken packages

sudo apt-get update

You again may have to confirm the action and password. This may take a while to run and give many messages on your screen about downloads and updates.

Then reboot and try again, please let us know how you get on.

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I run Pop!_OS on two machines…

If I ever hit that ugly initramfs prompt - I’d probably re-install from USB…

My desktop runs Pop! (22.04) has some kinda glitched Graphical Login (gdm) issue where it never runs my desktop… So I disabled GDM.

When I boot - after unlocking my LUKS encrypted “/” - I login to the TTY console, and once logged in - I run “startx” - but it sounds like you’re not even getting a proper TTY console - just that “initramfs” prompt…

I can live with the above workaround - but sorry - I don’t know the answer to your issue - because if it ever happened to me - I’d wipe and re-install - I only ever have one O/S on any system and all my data is in my self-hosted cloud solutions or my NAS…

Note : Pop!_OS 22.04 doesn’t use grub - it uses SystemDBoot or whatever it’s called…

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That explains why the advanced option did not offer a repair screen , thanks did not know that. I am a mint user so thought it was following the usual start offered by ubuntu

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I only “discovered” this myself fairly recently (last last year?) - was looking to interrupt my boot process and discovered that Pop! doesn’t use GRUB…

My main Pop! machine celebrated it’s 2nd birthday couple weeks back! i.e. the date I install Pop!_OS was 8th of March 2023…

╭─x@titan ~/bin  ‹main*› 
╰─➤  bat linux-birthday.bash 
───────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
       │ File: linux-birthday.bash
───────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
   1   │ #!/usr/bin/env  bash
   2   │ # Show me when this linux was installio'd
   3   │ echo Da berfdae is duh : 
   4   │ stat / | grep "Birth"
   5   │ STRNG=$(stat / | grep "Birth")
   6   │ DOB=$(echo $STRNG |awk '{print $2}')
   7   │ echo ......-----------------------------------......
   8   │ echo "      Thusly my birthday is : $DOB"
   9   │ echo ......-----------------------------------......
───────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

╰─➤  linux-birthday.bash 
Da berfdae is duh :
 Birth: 2023-03-08 07:54:09.000000000 +0800
......-----------------------------------......
      Thusly my birthday is : 2023-03-08
......-----------------------------------......

I feel bad now - I didn’t even give it a card or get it a birthday cake!

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Anytime I got a BusyBox message I would type in: fsck -fy /dev/sda6 and it seemed to fix the problem. This was on a laptop using Linux Mint (an older version). Something would happen where some files would go missing. I now use a desktop with Pop.OS and have never had this problem.

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You need to use smartctl to check the disk on that laptop.
Those are all the signs of a failing disk.

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Thanks. It is a 2009 Toshiba and I rarely use it.

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