[Solved] Failed to mount /boot/efi

jdgordon01 · 2013-12-01 07:23:38

Hi,
Recently I've been having a lot of trouble starting Arch Linux. As in I can't. It starts off fine, but then whike it tries to mount my disks I get this problem:

systemd-fsck[159]: fsck.fat 3.0.23 (2013-10-15)
systemd-fsck[159]: /dev/sda5: 111 files, 6783/130048 clusters
[ OK ] Started File System Check on /dev/disk/by-uuid/6AE1-65C8.
Mounting /boot/efi...
[ FAILED ] Failed to mount /boot/efi.
See 'systemctl status boot-efi.mount' for details.
[ DEPEND ] Dependency failed for Local File Systems.
Welcome to emergency mode! After logging in, type "journalctl -xb" to view system logs, "systemctl reboot" to reboot, "systemctl default" to try again
to boot into default mode.

This is the output of systemctl status boot-efi.mount:

boot-efi.mount - /boot/efi
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/fstab)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sun 2013-12-01 17:40:58 EST; 4min 16s ago
    Where: /boot/efi
     What: /dev/disk/by-uuid/6AE1-65C8
  Process: 179 ExecMount=/bin/mount /dev/disk/by-uuid/6AE1-65C8 /boot/efi -t vfat -o rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro (code=exited, status=32)

Dec 01 17:40:58 jay-archlinux systemd[1]: boot-efi.mount mount process exited, code=exited status=32
Dec 01 17:40:58 jay-archlinux systemd[1]: Failed to mount /boot/efi
Dec 01 17:40:58 jay-archlinux systemd[1]: Unit boot-efi.mount entered failed state.

The output of mount /dev/disk/by-uuid/6AE1-65C8 /boot/efi -t vfat:

mount: unknown filesystem type: 'vfat'

(When I first started getting this it told me dosfstools wasn't installed. However I've since installed the latest version and it's made no difference.

I dual boot Arch Linux and Windows 8 on a laptop under UEFI, and have had this setup for about a year now. This problem seems like it may be associated with recent problems I've been having with windows 8 (Spontaneously restarting itself 2 or 3 times a day with a BSoD and "Kernel Data Inpage Error".) One time after such a restart I went to boot Arch Linux after the restart rather than Windows and got errors similar to the one I first posted, except that they were occurring with my Windows NTFS partitions which I mount in Arch Linux. After booting into Windows and restarting manually, the error just became what it is now. However I'm not sure if this was where the problem first began or not as I haven't used Arch Linux very often over the past few months.

Does anyone have any idea what's going on or how to fix it?

Thanks.

Last edited by jdgordon01 (2013-12-01 14:05:59)

jasonwryan · 2013-12-01 07:27:04

Do you have vfat in your mkinitcpio modules array?

WonderWoofy · 2013-12-01 07:33:43

I am going to guess that the OP does not have vfat in MODULES, and the booting kernel is not the same as the modules in /usr/lib.

Edit: BTW, the list of modules in mkinitpcio.conf is not an array. It is just a quoted multi-word variable.

Last edited by WonderWoofy (2013-12-01 07:34:54)

jasonwryan · 2013-12-01 08:07:54

WonderWoofy wrote:

Edit: BTW, the list of modules in mkinitpcio.conf is not an array. It is just a quoted multi-word variable.

Then there is a bug in the man page

jdgordon01 · 2013-12-01 08:11:55

jasonwryan wrote:

Do you have vfat in your mkinitcpio modules array?

Nope, the modules array in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf is empty. I just tried adding vfat to it, but that didn't seem to make any difference.

jasonwryan · 2013-12-01 08:14:09

Did you rebuild the initrd after adding it?

jdgordon01 · 2013-12-01 08:27:13

jasonwryan wrote:

Did you rebuild the initrd after adding it?

Ah. Sorry if I'm a little newbish here. I just tried "mkinitcpio -g /boot/initramfs-linux.img" and got the output "==> ERROR: '/lib/modules/3.9.9-1-ARCH' is not a valid kernel module directory". Not sure if there's something wrong with Arch or if I'm doing something wrong.

Edit: realised that it was trying to use the wrong kernel, ran the command again with the correct kernel under the -k flag. This time it rebuilt properly but I still have all the same errors on rebooting.

Last edited by jdgordon01 (2013-12-01 08:33:04)

jasonwryan · 2013-12-01 08:40:36

Why are you using the -k switch? Please paste the output of `pacman -Q linux` and `uname -a`.

If you are running the correct kernel, `mkinitcpio -p linux` is all you need to regenerate your initrd.

jdgordon01 · 2013-12-01 09:02:24

pacman -Q linux

linux 3.11.6-1

uname -a

3.9.9-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Jul 3 22:45:16 CEST 2013 x86_64 GNU/Linux

No idea how that's happened... I initially tried 'mkinitcpio -p linux' but it also did nothing.

EDIT: Turns out I must have updated at some point and forgotten a crucial step in manually copying the new files in /boot/ to /boot/efi/EFI/arch/ which is necessary when updating under UEFI systems. I updated again using the live USB/chrooting, manually copied everything that was needed and everything's working again!

Last edited by jdgordon01 (2013-12-01 14:05:35)

WonderWoofy · 2013-12-01 17:38:37

This might be of use to you.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-12-01 07:23:38

[Solved] Failed to mount /boot/efi

#2 2013-12-01 07:27:04

Re: [Solved] Failed to mount /boot/efi

#3 2013-12-01 07:33:43

Re: [Solved] Failed to mount /boot/efi

#4 2013-12-01 08:07:54

Re: [Solved] Failed to mount /boot/efi

#5 2013-12-01 08:11:55

Re: [Solved] Failed to mount /boot/efi

#6 2013-12-01 08:14:09

Re: [Solved] Failed to mount /boot/efi

#7 2013-12-01 08:27:13

Re: [Solved] Failed to mount /boot/efi

#8 2013-12-01 08:40:36

Re: [Solved] Failed to mount /boot/efi

#9 2013-12-01 09:02:24

Re: [Solved] Failed to mount /boot/efi

#10 2013-12-01 17:38:37

Re: [Solved] Failed to mount /boot/efi

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