Arch Linux

tjbp

Member

Registered: 2010-11-06

Posts: 43

[SOLVED] Can't boot installation (previously SATA) from USB drive

I recently dd'd an Arch installation from an internal SATA drive to an external USB drive. The clone seems to have worked without issue, but I'm receiving "ERROR: Unable to determine major/minor number of root device '/dev/disk/by-uuid/<uuid>'" when attempting to boot from the USB drive.

After dropping to shell, perusing /dev shows there's no sd* entries, so I guessed the USB support in the kernel hadn't loaded. I loaded up the Arch live CD then mounted the root partition to /mnt and the boot partition to /mnt/boot. After adding 'usb' to the hooks array in /mnt/etc/mkinitcpio.conf, I rebuilt the image using

# mkinitcpio -k "2.6.39-ARCH" -b /mnt/ -c /mnt/etc/mkinitcpio.conf -g /mnt/boot/kernel26.img

All seemed to go correctly (though it complained about there not being a directory for 2.6.39-ARCH in /lib/modules even though it should be looking in /mnt/lib/modules), except upon reboot I get the exact same error, and the USB drive is nowhere to be found in /dev.

I'm not sure where to go from here - any help would be much appreciated.

Last edited by tjbp (2011-07-14 14:21:18)

lilsirecho

Veteran

Registered: 2003-10-24

Posts: 5,000

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot installation (previously SATA) from USB drive

Perhaps the USB drive cannot be boot enabled by that method.

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djgera

Developer

From: Buenos Aires - Argentina

Registered: 2008-12-24

Posts: 723

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Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot installation (previously SATA) from USB drive

Hello

add -S autodetect to mkinitcpio, then boot from usb, boot, login, rebuild image with autodetection.

Is a good idea to keep a fallback image (no-autodetection).

Last edited by djgera (2011-07-13 15:02:18)

tjbp

Member

Registered: 2010-11-06

Posts: 43

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot installation (previously SATA) from USB drive

Hello

add -S autodetect to mkinitcpio, then boot from usb, boot, login, rebuild image with autodetection.

Is a good idea to keep a fallback image (no-autodetection).

Thanks for the advice - this stops mkinitcpio looking at the running OS's modules, but I still get the same error on boot. Interestingly, it also seems my USB keyboard no longer works on boot - so perhaps there's a problem with the hook and it's preventing the rest of the hooks (like usbinput) from loading..?

Last edited by tjbp (2011-07-14 10:57:26)

tjbp

Member

Registered: 2010-11-06

Posts: 43

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot installation (previously SATA) from USB drive

Solved - I updated an old netbook with Arch to the same kernel (2.6.39) and ran mkinitcpio on the USB drive from there, and it seemed to correctly hook the necessary USB modules. I have no idea why it didn't work in the same way via the live CD's 2.6.33. Anyway, time to make that USB-enabled fallback image!

litemotiv

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2008-08-01

Posts: 5,026

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot installation (previously SATA) from USB drive

tjbp, you can mark your thread solved by editing the first post and adding [Solved] to the topic title.

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