error: file '/vmlinuz-4.4.0-59-generic' not found, you need to load the kernel first [duplicate]

I was receiving a message upon booting my Ubuntu installation that the boot drive had exactly 0 bytes left and somewhere else on this forum someone suggested looking at the kernels that were installed. I had about 20. I removed like five of the oldest to see if that would resolve the issue and when I rebooted all I get is this:

error: file '/vmlinuz-4.4.0-59-generic' not found
error: you need to load the kernel first

Do I have to reinstall or is there some way to recover from this?

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2 Answers

When at the grub screen, read the instructions at its bottom. Type "c" for a grub command line. Then use the "ls" command and the Tab key to get the choices and look at (hd0,1)/boot (for instance).
ls TAB and then choose the disk number (probably 0)
ls (hd0, TAB and choose the partition (probably 1)
ls (hd0,1)/ TAB and see that boot is in the list, then
ls (hd0,1)/boot to see what kernels are left.
Note the number you want to boot, exit the grub command prompt (instructions at bottom of screen), and at the grub menu, type "e" to edit the boot commands. Change the kernel number and the initrd number to match the number you selected, and ctrl X or F10 to boot. After a successful boot, immediately fix the grub.cfg file by running

sudo update-grub

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So I found a post on askUbuntu about using "Boot Repair Disk" available on SourceForge here: Boot Repair Disk. After booting to the disk and running the software, my system is back up and running. Not exactly sure what all it did to recover my system but it is now booting up normally again. Now to go make a donation to the project.

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