HorseChandelier

We used to use virtual box on windows with an immutable hard disk to boot the environment with storage, for persistence, elsewhere (usb for example) if required. Just used standard ubuntu for the guest distro.

Once you shut down the VM the vhd reverts to as installed. It’s a bit painful distributing the system but can be done.

You can prevent ordinary users messing with the immutable setting as well if that is a concern.

Wine Is Not an Emulator…

Is VSS even a backup?

Nope, not even close.

I thought it just copies old revisions of files into that shadow area

It just copies the deltas…

Backups can use vss to get a static image of the volume (deltas are written to the shadow area, which isn’t backed up, whilst the backup is running) it’s a little different for vhdx files on VMs but basically the same.

It’s magic… And often means that I don’t have to restore lost files from backup, just view the old versions and grab a copy from there.

You are right, it doesn’t happen with any other O/S except iOS where you have to pay people/Apple to fix it (or reset the OS) or Windows where the stock response is “reinstall the O/S”

How valuable is the data on your laptop? Did you have it backed up? If so, stop worrying and just take the Windows approach. If not… Find someone local to you who is able to fix it (good luck with that…)

As for the rest - you come over as someone who expects someone else to fix your shit for free with no information other than “waaaa it’s stopped working”

This may help How to as Smart Questions

Fwiw, based on your brief description of symptoms, I would say your boot device file system is broken somehow. To fix you need to mount it on another booted OS and fsck it (however if it mounts, copy valuable data off onto other media, then fsck it) . How to do that is left to your powers of Google. Not warranting my response in any way.

Best of luck.

First up - I know nothing about your specific problem. Let me add some pointers as to why you may be having difficulty…

You need to provide way more detail than a screenshot (which shows nothing really) and “why is it broken?”

What is the hardware, what is the boot device, what is the boot loader (and version), what does the boot loader config look like… There could be any number of things that stop the boot, including a corrupt boot file.

No one is able to diagnose your problem from the information you have provided.

If you are unwilling to grab a USB stick from a retailer, boot a different OS image and try some diags on your original file system you may well find people reluctant to help (for free…)

drawings do not exploit anyone.

Hmmm. I think you will find in many jurisdictions that they are treated as if they do.