[Cialug] Ubuntu 10.04 boot issue

[Tom Sellers]

Today for some unknown reason I found my machine powered down.  I usually leave it on all the time.  


When I attempted to boot it up I encountered a screen I have not seen before.  Keep in mind that I am not a seasoned Linux user.

When the machine boots it ends the boot process at a black screen with a prompt of "initramfs" and tells me to type help for a list of commands.  When I do that I get a large string of commands all run together which is several lines long.  


How serious is my problem?  Can I recover from this?

If I do a ls command it appears that the file structure is still there although I am not positive that there is not a directory that might be missing.  

Can anyone give me some suggestions on how to proceed?

Thanks!