Use The Recovery Partition Edit on GitHub
The recovery partition on this operating system is a full copy of the Pop!_OS installation disk. It can be used exactly the same as if a live disk copy of Pop!_OS was booted from a USB drive. The existing operating system can be repaired or reinstalled from the recovery mode. You can also perform a refresh install, which allows you to reinstall without losing any user data or data in your home directory, or opt to do a fresh install, which will essentially reset all OS data. Refresh Installs are only available on a fresh install of Pop!_OS 19.04 and above.
To boot into recovery mode, bring up the systemd-boot menu by holding down SPACE while the system is booting. On the menu, choose Pop!_OS Recovery.
Table of Contents
Repair
If the existing system needs to be repaired, then click the Install Pop!_OS in the top left, and choose quit.
To access to the existing OS drive and run the package manager repair commands, the following commands will need to be run:
First, press +T/+T to open a terminal, then type this command:
lsblk
This will show you the name of the main internal drive, which will have 4 partitions on it. We will be working with the 3rd partition. If the main drive is an NVMe drive, it will be called /dev/nvme0n1p3 and if the drive is a SATA or regular M.2 drive, it will be called /dev/sda3.
Next, run this command:
sudo mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
OR for NVMe drives:
sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p3 /mnt
If the command fails and says mount: /mnt: unknown filesystem type 'crypto_LUKS', then the hard drive has been encrypted, and additional commands are needed to unlock it.
Encrypted Disk
To get access to an encrypted disk, these additional commands need to be run in order to unlock the disk. Please use the lsblk command described above to determine the correct drive and partition.
sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda3 cryptdata
sudo lvscan
sudo vgchange -ay
OR for NVMe drives:
sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/nvme0n1p3 cryptdata
sudo lvscan
sudo vgchange -ay
Note Pay attention to what the cryptdata group is called. If it is named something other than ‘data-root’ Substitute the correct info into this next command. Make sure that -root is on the end:
sudo mount /dev/mapper/data-root /mnt
And now the existing hard drive can be accessed by going to the /mnt folder. To use the Files program, go to ‘+ Other Locations’ -> ‘Computer’ and then click on the /mnt folder.
Chroot
chroot is the way to run commands as if the existing operating system had been booted. Once these commands are run, then package manager (apt) and other system level commands can be run.
The EFI partition is usually around 512MB so that would be the partition that we replace in the next command. The Recovery Partition is around 4GB as well.
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi
for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys /run; do sudo mount -B $i /mnt$i; done
sudo cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/etc/
sudo chroot /mnt
OR for NVMe drives:
sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot/efi
for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys /run; do sudo mount -B $i /mnt$i; done
sudo cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/etc/
sudo chroot /mnt
To exit from the chroot and reboot the computer, run these commands:
exit
reboot
Refresh Install
Starting with new installations of Pop!_OS 19.04 (not through upgrading) the installer will include a new Refresh Install option that allows you to reinstall the OS to be reinstalled without losing user account information and data in the home directory. However, your applications will still need to be reinstalled.
Reinstall
Once the recovery operating system has opened, the Pop Installer will start automatically. If the system needs to be reinstalled, go ahead and continue the installation steps as demonstrated here.
If files need to be copied off before reinstall, open the Files program to get access to the existing install. If the existing install is encrypted, please see the encrypted disk instructions above.