Arch Linux

5donuts

Member

From: The Internet

Registered: 2014-11-06

Posts: 24

[SOLVED] vfat filesystem is not recognized

After following the beginner's guide for installing Arch (UEFI), I rebooted and saw this error:

mount: unknown filesystem 'vfat'

Typically, this error shows up when you update the kernel, but this is a fresh installation, so I wouldn't expect this to be an issue. In fact, I did not encounter this issue just a couple weeks ago when installing Arch on another machine (also UEFI) by following the beginner's guide.

Just to double-check myself, I re-created the UEFI partition, and re-pacstrapped, re-created the boot entries, etc. in case there was something wrong with the partition, but the issue still occurred.

Anyone know what might be causing this issue?

Last edited by 5donuts (2015-12-18 03:26:39)

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The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. --Terry Pratchett

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 12,418

Re: [SOLVED] vfat filesystem is not recognized

what is the output of `uname -r` and `pacman -Q linux`?

5donuts

Member

From: The Internet

Registered: 2014-11-06

Posts: 24

Re: [SOLVED] vfat filesystem is not recognized

uname -r gives

4.2.5-1-ARCH

pacman -Q linux gives

sh: pacman: not found

probably because I currently only have access to the emergency shell you get when the bootloader encounters a fatal error.

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The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. --Terry Pratchett

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 12,418

Re: [SOLVED] vfat filesystem is not recognized

Ah, ok.

Are you setting the correct partition as root? Using a separate /usr partition? Just how far are you getting, what does it tell you, exactly, when it drops to you the shell?

Last edited by Scimmia (2015-12-15 03:43:25)

5donuts

Member

From: The Internet

Registered: 2014-11-06

Posts: 24

Re: [SOLVED] vfat filesystem is not recognized

The efi partition (/dev/sda2) is set as /mnt/boot and everything else is on one partition (/dev/sda3).

When being dropped into the emergency shell, I see the following messages:

:: running early hook [udev]
starting version 228
:: running hook [udev]
:: Triggering uevents...
:: performing fsck on '/dev/sda2'
:: mounting '/dev/sda2' on real root
mount: unknown filesystem type 'vfat'
You are now being dropped into an emergency shell.
sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
[rootfs /]# _

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The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. --Terry Pratchett

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 12,418

Re: [SOLVED] vfat filesystem is not recognized

Yep, there's your problem. In your bootloader config, you have the ESP set as "root=". That needs to be your root partition.

5donuts

Member

From: The Internet

Registered: 2014-11-06

Posts: 24

Re: [SOLVED] vfat filesystem is not recognized

oh derp! Thank you so much.

Note to future self: install arch when you're not half-asleep.

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The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. --Terry Pratchett