OK, so I'll be the first to admit that I'm a complete newb to anything Linux, but have sofar enjoyed the ease with which I've used Ubuntu. Last night I performed it's recommended upgrades, then it said that I needed to reboot. I closed everything I had running, and rebooted.

Enter the fun.

Now instead of loading ubuntu I get my regular IBM load screen, which will allow me to get to my set-up menu just fine. After that I will get a really fast page, which is pretty much full of information, and lasts about a quarter of a second. Then finally I get a page that says:

__________________________________________________________________

[Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For
the first word, TAB lists possible command
completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
completions of a device/filename.]

grub>

___________________________________________________________________

I have tried searching around for some advice, but all the advice I've found will only be helpful if I'm already in Ubuntu (or windows, which I'm not running)

I have tried booting from Live CD, but as far as the machine is concerned, there's nothing there.

Just in case it's helpful:
IBM Thinkpad G40, Celeron 2.5, 1 GB Ram, and running nothing but Ubuntu 8.04

I have one large file on my machine I would like to keep, and have done some cosmetic tweeking to my desktop, so I would prefer not to lose anything, but If I have to start over, am willing to.

Any help, is GREATLY appreciated

Let's see if this will help. I have little understanding and/or idea of the type of your problem. I suspect that the menu.lst file or GRUB (on the MBR) have been changed in a wrong way.
I suggest that you try this (I will be more explicit since I am also a newbie like you):

1. Boot from your Live CD and open up terminal from <Applications> --> <Accessories> --> <Terminal>
2. sudo su
3. mkdir hardy
4. mount /dev/sda1 hardy
(if your linux partition is not /dev/sda1 then change to the appropriate)
5. grub-install --recheck --root-directory=hardy /dev/sda
(note: not /dev/sda1 but /dev/sda)
6. Exit as root user by typing "exit" or Ctrl+D
7. sudo gedit menu.lst
Inspect if ever everything in this file is OK. ..
Here is the example of the portion of the file
title <what_you_saw_on_your_boot_menu>
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 ro quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img
quiet
...
the /vmlinuz and /initrd.img are symbolic links on the / directory to the relevant files in /boot directory
the root=/dev/sda1 should ALWAYS correspond to the "root (hd0,0)" entry a mismatch will result into problems.

8. If everything is fine, close the file and reboot normally without the Live CD

thank you for the quick reply

however, trying to boot with or without the live CD still takes me to the same grub command page.

i've tried going through the setup menu and selecting to boot from cd, but it still is not helping

any other advice?

That could be a BIOS issue. Check whether you can reset it to defaults.

tried resetting the bios, still nothing

the problem seems to be alot like what was addressed here http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/lin...d-edition.html

however, it still doesn't get me into Ubuntu

on a side note, I've also noticed that I may be missing some parts of my grub, for example and can't access the grub.conf, it's like it's not there

Well, yes, it does look like GRUB is gone. Have you tried a rescue from the livecd?

See post #3.
Does issuing the find command work - what does it return ?.
From the grub prompt enter "geometry (hd0)" (no quotes) and check everything looks o.k.

I've never used an IBM before, but is there any kind of button that takes you to a boot menu? On my Dell, holding down the F12 key during boot-up will bring up a menu that lets you choose the device you want to boot from. You can choose CD/DVD and then boot it explicitly from the BIOS level.

Another possible solution is to go into the BIOS and change the boot order to CD/DVD drive first. Most computers nowadays ignore the drive and go straight to the Bootloader (after checking the floppy drive).

EDIT: Sorry. Didn't read the whole thing. Why don't you try downloading a Linux distro that fits on a floppy disk, like Basic Linux? You might be able to reset the OS through that.

I was able to boot into Ubuntu using an older version (7.04) and messed with the grub menu from there,
no instead of loading to the grub> command, it loads to

GRUB Loading stage 1.5

GRUB loading, please wait. . .
internal error: the second sector of Stage 2 is unknown.


if worst comes to worst, I can boot from the older live CD and I have access to all my old files, just will need to transfer them to a different computer

might use this as a reason to try out the newest version, but would honestly like to keep learning, which is the good side-effect to having troubles, I guess