* sigh * I think my hard drive died (despite my S.M.A.R.T telling me it was "healthy"). I can't boot into anything

Well the fact that you got to GRUB means that it still partially works at least. Could have been just a bad update

@Gophyr I don't know. I was using the system when it happened. I was watching 'Friends' (in the background) and trying to install docker. Suddenly the icons for some of the applets started disappearing and basic commands like 'ls' or 'cd' would return with 'command not found'.

@monkehparade woah, that sounds like a really scary nightmare

@monkehparade I'll still put my money on bad update of windows which makes your system crap it's pants if it's dual booted. Why, because windows doesn't give a fuck about you or Linux.

P.S. - if you have a dual booted system try using live usb booted with Linux and try to repair grub.

@drekhi12 how do you repair grub using live USB?
Whenever I disturb my grub, I rely on reinstalling linux(I've got dual booted)

But luckily you have a recent backup image of your boot disk

@VTCoder Read this: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/...
I have been in this situation many times now and this has always helped me out. Just boot your system from live usb and follow the instructions. It will take hardly 10mins to get back into your system .

One time I had this and it was JUST a half-broken SATA cable. Be sure about what the problem really is.

"lost everything"? What do you mean you have no backup?

@Qwby I doubt my laptop has a SATA cable. Probably a SATA port, and I double checked to see if the hard disk was loose .

@k0pernikus I can't afford a decent laptop, external storage or even an Internet connection with enough bandwidth.

@drekhi12 That's the first thing I tried. If the hard disk isn't already completely gone, it's probably on its deathbed waiting to go to heaven.

Well... As you see... Grub is there, so HDD is not necessarily dead...
You can still try to fix your grub/reinstall grub and give it another go.

Boot sth from USB and give it a go ...