Installing Arch Linux on USB key: error while booting

Mazh · 2011-04-20 22:01:58

Hello,

first of all, I must say I've followed the steps from this article on arch wiki to install archlinux on my USB key: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … _a_USB_key

So what I did is to use one of my 2 usb keys to INSTALL linux, and the second one to RUN linux. I used dd to write on the 1st usb, eveything worked fine when booting, then I do install arch on the my second usb following the stept from the link above, everything works until I get this error while booting (at the middle):

Waiting 10 seconds for device /dev/sdc/
Root device '/dev/sdc' doesn't exist.  Attempting to create it.
ERROR:  Unable to determine major/minor number of root device '/dev/disk/by-uuid/lotsofnumbers'
You are being dropped to a recovery shell
     Type 'exit' to try and continue booting
/bin/sh: Can't contact tty;  job control turned off
[ramfs /]#

To summarize I'll show you my conf files that could help you to resolve my problem:

/etc/fstab.conf

/dev/sdc1 /boot ext2 defaults 0 1
/dev/sdc2 / ext3 defaults 0 1
/dev/sdc3 /home ext3 defaults 0 1

So here I've sdc1 boot 32MB partition; sdc2 root 3GB partition; sdc3 home 978MB partition for a total of 4GB USB key~
I didn't make a swap partition as in the tutorial they are writing it's unnecessary for some kind of reasons.

/etc/mkinitcpio.conf

HOOKS="base udev usb autodetect pata scsi sata filesystems"

I've added to here, "usb" to the hooks

installed GRUB on my sdc, here is the menu.ist:

# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux (USB)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdc ro vga=773
initrd /kernel26.img
[...]

So, I boot GRUB without problems, start Arch Linux, but then I got this error above.

I've searched alot on some forums and read many stuffs, but sitll can't fix it and it seems complicated.

I've tried to boot with UUID, also, but didn't make difference. I tried to remove some parameter from the hooks, but unfortunately this wasn't working still. I've read somewhere to use chroot, but I didn't catch on how to do that and what was the use of chroot, I'm still noob user of arch linux and currently learning. Maybe it's the problem, as some forum were talking about creating a new image, but I still don't know how to make it. By the way, I'm not sure this could have fixed my current problem. I've also read somewhere it could be due to my lack of space, but I wrote you how I did partition my USB key, let me know if you have any suggestion please.

Mr.Elendig · 2011-04-20 23:22:08

1. Did you actually rebuild the initcpio after editing the config?
2. Tried the fallback?
3. Use https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pe … ice_naming
4. Why are you not using larch?

Mazh · 2011-04-21 00:28:03

1. What I did is re-installing entirely from my installation disk or USB to test out different setting in my config files, because I don't know how to edit my .conf as I can't really finish to boot to the end and get in terminal mode? If there is a quicker way to edit files from any terminal to go into my current USB sdc to modify directly my file from there, I'd enjoy probably. So rebuilding the initpio, no, I just re-installed to test out different configs.

2. Yes, same error.

3. Tested out by-id/by-path and uuid = no difference

4. Didn't know about larch, it seems to be a nice tool, I'll check it out

Arch Linux

#1 2011-04-20 22:01:58

Installing Arch Linux on USB key: error while booting

#2 2011-04-20 23:22:08

Re: Installing Arch Linux on USB key: error while booting

#3 2011-04-21 00:28:03

Re: Installing Arch Linux on USB key: error while booting

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