Okay while upgrading from 10.4 to 12.4 in ubuntu package manager my computer froze up for like 2 hours. I ended up rebooting it and its running fine in 10.4 but i cant run the package manager. it is telling me i have 3 broken or missing packages. I've just spent the last 2 hours reading trough other posts but im not tech enough to figure out how to fix this for myself
tom@tom-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get install libc6
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libc-dev-bin: Depends: libc6 (< 2.12) but 2.15-0ubuntu10.4 is to be installed
libc6-dev: Depends: libc6 (= 2.11.1-0ubuntu7.1) but 2.15-0ubuntu10.4 is to be installed
libnih1: Depends: libc6 (< 2.12) but 2.15-0ubuntu10.4 is to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).
tom@tom-laptop:~$

any thoughts what i need to do to fix this issue? thanks

Do what it says and reply again.

apt-get -f install

Other commands : (see man apt-get)

apt-get check

apt-get clean

apt-get update

upgrade

dist-upgrade

tom@tom-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get -f install
[sudo] password for tom:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... failed.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libc6: Depends: libc-bin (= 2.11.1-0ubuntu7.1) but 2.15-0ubuntu10.4 is installed
Recommends: libc6-i686
ubuntu-minimal: Depends: libc6-i686
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
E: Unable to correct dependencies
tom@tom-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get check
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libc6: Depends: libc-bin (= 2.11.1-0ubuntu7.1) but 2.15-0ubuntu10.4 is installed
Recommends: libc6-i686
ubuntu-minimal: Depends: libc6-i686
E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.

the other commands didnt help either. any other thoughts?

If you have a separate /home partition you are much better off doing a clean install and saving yourself alot of angst. Upgrades from one version to another in Ubuntu are often, as you have now found out, a very hit and miss affair.

My problem with just doing a clean install is I need to create a bootable sd card with the Ubuntu iso on the sd card. I tried unetbootin-windows to do this but the sd card is not booting up when I boot my laptop. So I don't know if the program is actually making the sd card bootable or not. I used a bootable sd card when I first installed Ubuntu on my laptop but I don't remember what program I used to make it. I need to be able to do this in windows.

Wins 7 can burn an iso image without unetbootin. Download>>select downloaded item>>burn options.

Have windows xp so that doesn't help. i tried Universal-USB-Installer but it says my sd card is too small. I guess i'll go and buy a 2 gig one and try that. Mine is only 1 gig.

Okay bought an 8 gig one. Still wont boot from it with both unetbootin or Universal-USB-Installer with the Ubuntu 13.04 iso. Upgraded my Bios to the newest version. Still wont boot. Tried 12.04 also with unetbootin but still nothing. Looking like my laptop wont boot with a sd card but thats how i installed ubuntu the first time. have to figure out a way to fix my broken or missing packages issue as a clean install doesnt seem to be an option.

Is this a usb drive?
If so it may show up in bios as a hdd, which you will see a+ sign next to hdd in boot.

No my laptop has an sd card slot in it. when i first installed ubuntu back like 3 years ago i used a 1 gig card in there and it booted just fine. now it wont boot from it. i think it should but with two programs both saying they make a sd card bootable and it wont boot from it. i dont know. i can try buying a usb drive but i know many of those arent bootable so i dont know. the sd card i bought is an 8 gig scandisk. windows finds it fine but dont know about bootable.