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Completely bricked XPS
Hi
I have made the clearly fatal mistake of trying to upgrade my XPS13 developer edition from Ubuntu 12.04 (I think - could have been 14.04 - the one it was supplied with anyway) - to 16.04. I was expecting some problems but afterwards I couldn't log in (login page just kept reappearing), there was no network, nothing. I could kick it into a terminal window from the login screen, log in there and install some network drivers manually but it didn't work to get the network back up.
So I tried a clean install from an Ububtu ISO which has made matters worse - an error message is all I get
[ 0.122637] Error parsing PCC subspaces from PCCT.
I was hoping I could get an official Dell image for 16.04 to start nice and clean but the online help offers nothing and it seems that because I am out of warranty I can't get any other support from them. So I was hoping someone here might be able to help, either with some clues how to fix things from where I am or how to do the upgrade successfully starting from scratch (I have a clone of the drive which I hope I can restore).
Sorry for dimwit questions, I am only a partial geek...
Dominic
cloojure
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October 17th, 2017 16:00
I have a model 9333 XPS 13 from 2014. I've upgraded if from Ubuntu 12.04 (original) and am now on 16.04 (also several intermediate releases).
The auto upgrade often bombs out (my initial upgrade from 12.04 -> 14.04 crashed hard). The safest way is to download the basic Ubuntu ISO to a thumb drive and do a clean install (with disk erase) to 16.04 (or whatever version). I haven't tried newer releases than 16.04 yet, myself.
As always, make good backups of all data before any OS changes/upgrades. Then, copy data to the newly installed OS after the upgrade.
Alan
dominicyoung
5 Posts
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October 18th, 2017 02:00
Thanks Alan. Might have to try that. Bit disappointing that having done to all the trouble of making a special build, Dell couldn't make it easier to do this!
dominicyoung
5 Posts
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October 19th, 2017 04:00
Sadly still well and truly bricked. After a clean install with erased disk, the machine can't find an OS to boot at all... Hmmm
dominicyoung
5 Posts
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October 22nd, 2017 02:00
Well... just in case this thread ever comes up in someone else's search here's what happened:
- installed Windows 10 clean. Worked fine.
- tried again with Ubuntu 16.04 also clean. Still complete failure.
- then tried Ubuntu 17.10 which worked perfectly...
There you go!
Dominic
cloojure
76 Posts
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October 24th, 2017 11:00
Dominic - For the record, what model number is your computer (see inside bottom flap)?
Strange that 16.04 didn't work....
Alan
dominicyoung
5 Posts
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October 24th, 2017 16:00
Alan
Under the flap it says P54G. When setting up Ubuntu it described itself as 9343.
This episode has been a bit of a disappointment. I keep challenging myself to live with Linux alone and I thought this machine might be the answer. And it was pretty good, for a long while (although I never managed to abandon my mac because of apps). But the upgrade failure was a big disappointment.
I guess the developer edition is really intended for people a lot geekier than me, but I love the idea of not being tied to the two big monolithic players. Can't completely let go quite yet...
Dominic