Unable to boot after installation

Israel · 2013-08-06 11:45:41

I followed the wiki article below line-by-line and installed Arch on a new machine:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_Guide

After rebooting I got the famous "The root device is not configured to be mounted read write" error while booting and came across a previous fix here:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=167153&p=1

I found my /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg file was already set up for "rw".

I looked at /etc/mkinitcpio.conf but found that the only section for HOOKS was commented out.

I attempted to chroot the installation to run "mkinitcpio -p linux" but just got warnings that /proc wasn't mounted.

At this point I decided what I've been reading must be slightly dated and there must be a new problem/fix to this.

Anyone with advice much appreciated.

Last edited by Israel (2013-08-10 10:45:58)

Trilby · 2013-08-06 11:52:58

The read write issue is not an error and will not prevent a normal boot. If you need to chroot to get access to the system, then there is something completely different going wrong.

Ignore the read write error message (for now), and describe the rest of the problem.

As for the /proc error with the chroot, either use arch-chroot if you have it installed on your live media, or read the chroot wiki page.

Last edited by Trilby (2013-08-06 11:53:46)

Israel · 2013-08-06 11:58:40

Hmm... Well, after that fsck quickly (almost instantly) reports that the file system is clean and then nothing happens. And I do mean absolutely nothing happens after that. I've let it run for several minutes after that and no other text pops up. I eventually have to manually turn off the computer and dig through Google for more solutions.

Do you know any specific logs I can look for? I tried /var/log and the usual places I know, but I couldn't find much of any thing being generated from this.

Trilby · 2013-08-06 12:03:42

Perhaps someone else would, but I don't know which fsck "that fsck" is. Is this the initramfs check, or the systemd check? What output have you seen up to that point? How are your partitions configured? ~~what is your bootloader and~~ how is it configured (edit: can you post your syslinux.cfg)?

Last edited by Trilby (2013-08-06 12:08:46)

henk · 2013-08-06 15:45:04

Did you try the options mentioned here?

Israel · 2013-08-07 09:59:28

After the text about the root partition not being read-write fsck says:

systemd-fsck[174]: /dev/sda2: clean, 31267/3301376 files, 422020/13195389 blocks

Here is my current layout from fdisk. /dev/sda1 is another Linux distro, and /dev/sda2 is Arch:

# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00079277

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1           38125       38914     6338561    5  Extended
/dev/sda2   *       13421       19991    52781557+  83  Linux
/dev/sda4               1       13420   107796118   83  Linux
/dev/sda5           38125       38914     6338560   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Here is the /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg file I currently have:

# Config file for Syslinux -
# /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg
#
# Comboot modules:
#   * menu.c32 - provides a text menu
#   * vesamenu.c32 - provides a graphical menu
#   * chain.c32 - chainload MBRs, partition boot sectors, Windows bootloaders
#   * hdt.c32 - hardware detection tool
#   * reboot.c32 - reboots the system
#   * poweroff.com - shutdown the system
#
# To Use: Copy the respective files from /usr/lib/syslinux to /boot/syslinux.
# If /usr and /boot are on the same file system, symlink the files instead
# of copying them.
#
# If you do not use a menu, a 'boot:' prompt will be shown and the system
# will boot automatically after 5 seconds.
#
# Please review the wiki: [url]https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Syslinux[/url]
# The wiki provides further configuration examples

DEFAULT arch
PROMPT 0        # Set to 1 if you always want to display the boot: prompt 
TIMEOUT 50
# You can create syslinux keymaps with the keytab-lilo tool
#KBDMAP de.ktl

# Menu Configuration
# Either menu.c32 or vesamenu32.c32 must be copied to /boot/syslinux 
UI menu.c32
#UI vesamenu.c32

# Refer to [url]http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Doc/menu[/url]
MENU TITLE Arch Linux
#MENU BACKGROUND splash.png
MENU COLOR border       30;44   #40ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR title        1;36;44 #9033ccff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR sel          7;37;40 #e0ffffff #20ffffff all
MENU COLOR unsel        37;44   #50ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR help         37;40   #c0ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR timeout_msg  37;40   #80ffffff #00000000 std
MENU COLOR timeout      1;37;40 #c0ffffff #00000000 std
MENU COLOR msg07        37;40   #90ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR tabmsg       31;40   #30ffffff #00000000 std

# boot sections follow
#
# TIP: If you want a 1024x768 framebuffer, add "vga=773" to your kernel line.
#
#-*

LABEL arch
        MENU LABEL Arch Linux
        LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
        APPEND root=/dev/sda2 rw
        INITRD ../initramfs-linux.img

LABEL archfallback
        MENU LABEL Arch Linux Fallback
        LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
        APPEND root=/dev/sda2 rw
        INITRD ../initramfs-linux-fallback.img

#LABEL windows
#        MENU LABEL Windows
#        COM32 chain.c32
#        APPEND hd0 1

LABEL hdt
        MENU LABEL HDT (Hardware Detection Tool)
        COM32 hdt.c32

LABEL reboot
        MENU LABEL Reboot
        COM32 reboot.c32

LABEL off
        MENU LABEL Power Off
        COMBOOT poweroff.com

I also looked at the options in the link from Henk, but when I tried to edit the boot parameters there were about 15-20 lines to choose from and the link did not specify which line to try these options with. However, if this was a video card issue I would expect to have a totally blank screen from what I've seen in the past. Maybe I'm wrong though.

Sorry for the long delay in responses, its been a crazy week.

Trilby · 2013-08-07 11:19:26

Could you also post your /etc/fstab

Perfect Gentleman · 2013-08-07 12:27:28

update syslinux

Last edited by Perfect Gentleman (2013-08-07 12:28:07)

Trilby · 2013-08-07 12:35:06

Perfect Gentleman wrote:

update syslinux

Can you elaborate? Why do you think that would be necessary?

The OPs system is getting well past the boot loader.

Updating syslinux.cfg would (normally) help deal with the error message in the first post, but that change has already been made and that is not the real issue here anyways.

WorMzy · 2013-08-07 13:01:03

After the clean message shows up, can you press Alt+F2 to get to a usable terminal?

alphaniner · 2013-08-07 13:16:13

Your partition table is on crack. It looks like you're not even using cylinders 19992 through 38124 (that's ~ half your drive). And speaking of, using cylinders is "DEPRECIATED!" (to quote fdisk).

Perfect Gentleman · 2013-08-07 13:39:32

Trilby wrote:

Perfect Gentleman wrote:
update syslinux
Can you elaborate? Why do you think that would be necessary?
The OPs system is getting well past the boot loader.
Updating syslinux.cfg would (normally) help deal with the error message in the first post, but that change has already been made and that is not the real issue here anyways.

the same problem was with grub. i had that problem

Trilby · 2013-08-07 14:09:48

You had a problem where grub booted successfully by systemd stalled during a fsck, and updating grub helped ??

Also, given this is a new installation with "rw" already in syslinux.cfg, it would seem it is already up to date.

Last edited by Trilby (2013-08-07 14:12:44)

Scimmia · 2013-08-07 15:03:03

Perfect Gentleman wrote:

Trilby wrote:
Perfect Gentleman wrote:
update syslinux
Can you elaborate? Why do you think that would be necessary?
The OPs system is getting well past the boot loader.
Updating syslinux.cfg would (normally) help deal with the error message in the first post, but that change has already been made and that is not the real issue here anyways.
the same problem was with grub. i had that problem

Grub had a problem due to their stupid config generator. Not an issue when you're actually modifying the config directly like with syslinux.

Israel · 2013-08-08 10:26:16

Here is the contents of my current /etc/fstab:

# cat /mnt/arch/etc/fstab 
 
# /dev/sda2
UUID=09b54b4f-edea-47c2-ba64-96f06d9c5136       /               ext4            rw,relatime,data=ordered        0 1

# Swap
UUID=dcb22b4c-2550-40e2-b90e-b092fe714ac9      swap             swap            defaults                        0 0

As per the link Henk provided I see an nVidia video controller and an Intel PCI Express card.

# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub to ESI Port (rev 12)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 12)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev 12)
00:07.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub PCI Express Root Port 7 (rev 12)
00:10.0 PIC: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 Physical and Link Layer Registers Port 0 (rev 12)
00:10.1 PIC: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 Routing and Protocol Layer Registers Port 0 (rev 12)
00:13.0 PIC: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub I/OxAPIC Interrupt Controller (rev 12)
00:14.0 PIC: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub System Management Registers (rev 12)
00:14.1 PIC: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub GPIO and Scratch Pad Registers (rev 12)
00:14.2 PIC: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub Control Status and RAS Registers (rev 12)
00:14.3 PIC: Intel Corporation 5520/5500/X58 I/O Hub Throttle Registers (rev 12)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82567LF-2 Gigabit Network Connection
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 90)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JIR (ICH10R) LPC Interface Controller
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) SATA AHCI Controller
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) SMBus Controller
01:06.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306/7/8 [Fire II(M)] IEEE 1394 OHCI Controller (rev c0)
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Device 0e22 (rev a1)
03:00.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation Device 0beb (rev a1)
04:00.0 SATA controller: JMicron Technology Corp. JMB362/JMB363 Serial ATA Controller (rev 03)
04:00.1 IDE interface: JMicron Technology Corp. JMB362/JMB363 Serial ATA Controller (rev 03)

However, the link provided did mention the screen going blank, not with output like I'm receiving.
I don't know if that's the issue, but thought providing the rest of my hardware may help.

I didn't see any change using ALT + F2, but it was worth a try...

If this is an issue with syslinux.cfg please post a working version or point out what's wrong with mine.

Thanks again for the support!

henk · 2013-08-08 15:48:05

With other linux distro's, with installing I always have to add 'nomodeset' booting the live-cd, or I hit a blank screen.
After installing when I select the distro in Grub I still have to edit the the kernel line and add 'nomodeset' untill I have installed
the proprietary drivers for Nvidia. If I don't, eventually I end up with a blank screen.
This wiki page shows were to put parameters at startup.

Pacopag · 2013-08-08 17:37:32

I didn't read through this whole thread, but I got the same message when booting today. Although the system seemed to boot fine, running

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

seemed to make the message go away.

I think that the OP is using syslinux, so this may only help grub users that get this message.

Last edited by Pacopag (2013-08-09 03:03:52)

speedyx · 2013-08-08 18:24:02

I solved changing the APPEND line in the syslinux.cfg file from ro to rw

APPEND root=/dev/sda1 rw

WorMzy · 2013-08-08 19:40:34

Israel, you may want to change your thread title and update your first post, since it is not relevant to the problem you're having. I think that will clear up some of the confusion, and hopefully lessen the workload of the moderators.

Last edited by WorMzy (2013-08-08 19:41:00)

jasonwryan · 2013-08-08 20:43:53

Pacopag wrote:

I didn't read through this whole thread...
I think that the OP is using syslinux, so this may not help.

So why post here? Please don't derail threads like this...

Pacopag · 2013-08-09 02:58:41

Sorry. I thought it might be relevant to other grub users. The thread title is not syslinux-specific. I was getting the same message that's in the thread title, so I thought I'd share what I did to get rid of it.

Last edited by Pacopag (2013-08-09 02:59:05)

dlh · 2013-08-09 07:20:22

Weird, I have the same problem on two of my machines.

Solution for me was:

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

which is also weird.

Last edited by dlh (2013-08-09 07:55:24)

mid-kid · 2013-08-09 09:58:22

EDIT: Created a new thread for my problem.

Last edited by mid-kid (2013-08-10 17:02:47)

Israel · 2013-08-09 10:18:18

I do not mind any suggestions, but grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg was what part of the install I used in the first link I provided. So yes, I'm using GRUB. I also showed in my /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg that I posted that "APPEND root=/dev/sda2 rw" was already set that way. I just tried nomodeset but didn't experience any change.

I don't mind changing the topic, but I haven't seen many forums let the users have that option after the topic is created. If this one does, this is my first thread and I haven't played with enough of the forum interface to find it. That's usually up to a moderator, which they are welcome to do, but the topic seems to have shifted a lot. I would probably wait to the true issue is found to be specific when users with the same problem try to look up this information.

I don't think mid-kid's post hurt anything. More people complaining may help others know this is a problem across many machines now and that I'm not just running bad hardware. I was starting to wonder if that was the case myself.

Last edited by Israel (2013-08-09 10:19:16)

alphaniner · 2013-08-09 13:14:30

Changing the topic is reasonable. To do so, just edit the first post and change the title. In the body of the post, insert details about the new topic at the top, making it clear the topic has been changed. I think it's encouraged to leave the text of your original post intact, but I'm not sure on this point. Anyway, you can always remove it later.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-08-06 11:45:41

Unable to boot after installation

#2 2013-08-06 11:52:58

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#3 2013-08-06 11:58:40

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#4 2013-08-06 12:03:42

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#5 2013-08-06 15:45:04

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#6 2013-08-07 09:59:28

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#7 2013-08-07 11:19:26

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#8 2013-08-07 12:27:28

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#9 2013-08-07 12:35:06

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#10 2013-08-07 13:01:03

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#11 2013-08-07 13:16:13

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#12 2013-08-07 13:39:32

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#13 2013-08-07 14:09:48

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#14 2013-08-07 15:03:03

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#15 2013-08-08 10:26:16

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#16 2013-08-08 15:48:05

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#17 2013-08-08 17:37:32

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#18 2013-08-08 18:24:02

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#19 2013-08-08 19:40:34

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#20 2013-08-08 20:43:53

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#21 2013-08-09 02:58:41

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#22 2013-08-09 07:20:22

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#23 2013-08-09 09:58:22

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#24 2013-08-09 10:18:18

Re: Unable to boot after installation

#25 2013-08-09 13:14:30

Re: Unable to boot after installation

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