Re: reinstall ubuntu urgent

Joep L. Blom wrote:
> I had run fsck several
> times and every time it repaired the corrupt inodes. However, after I
> restarted the system it ran for some  time and then the same problems
> occurred again. 

That looks like a failing harddisk to me, on a healthy disk this should 
not happen. Have a look at /var/log/syslog and find out if there are 
read errors or other failures reported for your disk.

> I had thought to repair it by upgrading to 12.04 but
> during that process the installation hung and I have a half installed
> 12.04 so I think I have to install a completely new system. However,
> I haven't found out how to install the new system and keep my home
> partition.

At the point where you can select wether the new system should be 
installed besides the existing one or use the entire disk, there is also 
an option for manual partitioning. Select that option and tell the 
installer which partition to use for "/" and which for "/home". Be very 
careful and double check that it set to NOT format your existing /home 
partition.

However, if there really is a failing harddisk, I would suggest to get a 
new harddisk first and install to that new disk.

Nils