[Solved] Can't boot, root device not found

Surry · 2012-03-19 04:56:25

I recently performed an update of udev and my kernel and after this I am unable to boot the normal kernel or the fallback. When I try I get this error:

ERROR: Unable to find root device '/dev/disk/by-uid/03619a2f-908f-4724-ba4b-1fb3985e382b' You are being dropped to a recovery shell Type 'exit' to try and continue booting sh: can't access tty; job control turned off

Typing exit results in me dropping to another shell and if done repeatedly a kernel panic. I attempted to boot via the grub console using the sda device block but I came up with the same error. When I look in /dev through the recovery console that comes up the sda* blocks aren't present.

I need to know if there is a way to do this without entirely reformatting my system, I also don't have easy access to another computer but I have an android phone. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

Last edited by Surry (2012-03-20 00:06:12)

jasonwryan · 2012-03-19 05:32:21

There are quite a few threads with the same issue. Short story: you don't need to reinstall - just chroot in from a live CD and repair the damage...

You can find the details in any one of said threads.

Gcool · 2012-03-19 07:44:44

And it's even literally documented on our lovely wiki.

Surry · 2012-03-20 00:04:16

This has been solved.

For anybody's reference:

From the recovery shell I had to load the modules ahci and sd_mod and that got the sda* to appear in /dev. After that I had to mount /dev/sda3 (my root partition) under /root and /new_root and then enter 'exit' to continue booting.

Pretty much:

modprobe ahci
modprobe sd_mod
mount /dev/sda3 /root
mount /dev/sda3 /new_root
exit

Arch Linux

#1 2012-03-19 04:56:25

[Solved] Can't boot, root device not found

#2 2012-03-19 05:32:21

Re: [Solved] Can't boot, root device not found

#3 2012-03-19 07:44:44

Re: [Solved] Can't boot, root device not found

#4 2012-03-20 00:04:16

Re: [Solved] Can't boot, root device not found

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