On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 6:00 PM, stan <stanl-fedorauser@vfemail.net> wrote:
On Mon, 4 Sep 2017 13:48:00 -0400
Matt Morgan <minxmertzmomo@gmail.com> wrote:

> The last time I signed off of Fedora 25, I opted to install updates.

I don't understand this.  Updating the system requires that it be
running, in order to download the packages, and install them.  Is this
some kind of GUI functionality?  Did you power down the system during
the update?  Have you successfully performed an update like this before?

I don't understand what it is either. I think it may have been new with F25. I don't believe I had ever used it before.
 

> Now it boots to a minimal grub menu, with no listing of kernel
> choices. I'm sorry to say I haven't understood grub well for about 10
> years. But I looked up some guides to using the menu (without
> success).

This sounds like the boot record for grub on the drive was damaged.  Or
the location it is pointing to in no longer valid.

>
> If I type 'exit,' I am able to boot Windows, which is dual installed.
> But I guess Grub can't find a kernel to boot, and I suppose it can't
> find its own config?
>
> I tried things like
>
> boot (which said I needed to tell it a kernel to use first)
> linux (which I thought was a way to load a kernel, but I just get
> "error: command 'linux' not found")
> ls (which can see the partitions, but can't tell what fs they are
> using, for the most part).
>
> Seems like the ls is kind of the issue--with the exception of one ext2
> partition (swap I guess) and one FAT (Windows), grub can't read the
> filesystems on the disk, so I can't tell it what kernel to boot.

Something has damaged the filesystem from the sounds of it.  I wonder
if it is just a coincidence that this happened during an update.

> Can anyone provide any guidance?
>
> FYI, this is an HP Envy laptop, if that helps.

Is it possible the drive has gone bad?

Is there a way for you to boot a rescue CD or a live CD (or USB)?  Then
you could run diagnostics / investigate from a running system.

Yes, I set up a F26 boot usb and just installed F26 on top of the existing root. It boots now; the grub options at boot are all messed up but I can work on that.

Thanks for the good suggestions!