Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

mries92 · 2017-10-08 17:47:11

Hello everybody. I am pretty new to all this so I'm sorry if I am missing something obvious here. I installed Arch last night and everything was working fine. I plugged in my external hard drives after the installation and was able to mount them and use them. This morning however, when I booted up I got a screen that said "exit_boot() failed, efi_main() failed". The issue is only resolved by unplugging my USB external drives and plugging them back in when I get booted into Linux successfully. Does anybody know what would be causing this? How can I make it so I don't have to unplug my hard drives before booting every time?

jasonwryan · 2017-10-08 17:59:49

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pe … ng#by-uuid

mries92 · 2017-10-08 18:04:34

Thank you for the response jasonwryan. I thought it might have something to do with UUID so I did exactly that and put an entry for each of the drives in my /etc/fstab file. It now looks like this.

# 
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system>	<dir>	<type>	<options>	<dump>	<pass>
# /dev/sda1
UUID=2badaa50-8672-47ba-8295-521d62979348	/         	ext4      	rw,relatime,data=ordered	0 1

# /dev/sdb2
UUID=FC43-795D      	/boot     	vfat      	rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro	0 2

UUID=98A4EC7BA4EC5CEE	/run/media/External	ntfs-3g	defaults,permissions,auto	0 1
UUID=5268CF7A68CF5B7D	/run/media/External2	ntfs-3g	defaults.permissions,auto	0 1

with the two at the bottom being my external drives, sdb2 being my EFI partition on my windows drive, and sda1 being my root filesystem. However, I still get the same message as before.

loqs · 2017-10-08 18:10:10

What kernel version is the panic occurring with? Please post a link to a screenshot of the panic.

jasonwryan · 2017-10-08 18:10:39

It is your boot loader/manager that you need to use UUIDs: that's why it is complaining it can't find your root partition.

mries92 · 2017-10-08 18:26:07

@loqs I am using base linux kernel version 4.13.4-1

@jasonwryan Ah right. that makes sense. I am using systemd-boot, so I modified my entry in /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf to use PARTUUID instead of Label like I was before. I am still experiencing the same problem however.

EDIT: here is what I have in my arch.conf file

title	Arch Linux
linux	/vmlinuz-linux
initrd	/intel-ucode.img
initrd	/initramfs-linux.img
options	root=PARTUUID=e45d9c6c-01 rw

Last edited by mries92 (2017-10-08 18:27:43)

loqs · 2017-10-08 18:37:43

The PARTUUID seems to be truncated

mries92 · 2017-10-08 23:53:18

Loqs, are you sure? When my external hard drives are not plugged in, the entry launches Arch just fine, so I think it is pointing to the correct partition. I am very puzzled by this, googling returns very few results for "exit_boot() failed, efi_main() failed".

mries92 · 2017-10-08 23:58:06

Also to add, the second answer here is EXACTLY my issue. The two external hard drives are the same model as each other. Unfortunately I do not even have an entry for these hard drives in the fstab anymore, so his solution will not work for me, the issue is still occurring.

https://ask.fedoraproject.org/en/questi … ainfailed/

EDIT:

Sorry for the wall of text guys, but I have a little more information. When trying to boot with only one hard drive plugged in everything works fine. It doesn't matter which one it is, but only one can be plugged in. I think the system is somehow having trouble telling them apart because they are the exact same model?

Last edited by mries92 (2017-10-09 00:05:36)

loqs · 2017-10-09 00:13:20

mries no I am not certain but was expecting the PARTUUID to have the format from persistent_block_device_naming#by-partuuid
The fstab is not relevant until after the boot loader / boot manager has executed ( if the system is using one), then the kernel starts execution then the initrd is loaded,
then the root partiton is mounted and then the fstab is read. The only information I have on your system is the contents of arch.conf
and that at some point after the system is powered on you see the error messages "exit_boot() failed, efi_main() failed".
Edit:
What is the output of the following

# blkid # please switch the drives and run the command again
$ mount

Last edited by loqs (2017-10-09 00:16:56)

mries92 · 2017-10-09 00:27:46

Alright loqs, here is the output of blkid and mount.

blkid, I had to run this as root to get the two external drives to show up. They are at the bottom.

/dev/sda1: LABEL="Linux" UUID="2badaa50-8672-47ba-8295-521d62979348" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="e45d9c6c-01"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="Recovery" UUID="F6F24381F24344D9" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="54cfa774-a24a-4038-992c-867d1af1949e"
/dev/sdb2: UUID="FC43-795D" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI system partition" PARTUUID="f80cf1a9-de86-4bb6-8aa2-634c207dd58a"
/dev/sdb4: LABEL="System" UUID="A0EC4F02EC4ED1E8" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="adaa214a-3ca9-4962-95cf-84d323978303"
/dev/sdb3: PARTLABEL="Microsoft reserved partition" PARTUUID="b45e9eb7-46f2-41f0-a1ad-b12500e16f25"
/dev/sdc1: PARTLABEL="Microsoft reserved partition" PARTUUID="bde92238-7246-42ad-aaa5-d64759075258"
/dev/sdc2: LABEL="External 2" UUID="5268CF7A68CF5B7D" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="b628b123-009b-4e83-a1ea-f5cd3974c060"
/dev/sdd1: PARTLABEL="Microsoft reserved partition" PARTUUID="6f6328ab-4d85-44d4-9ab6-6ea209be30be"
/dev/sdd2: LABEL="External" UUID="98A4EC7BA4EC5CEE" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="0cf0f201-7ee8-41e2-be8a-53ff19084d27"

mount - again the drives only appear when I run this as root

proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
dev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=8185572k,nr_inodes=2046393,mode=755)
run on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,mode=755)
efivarfs on /sys/firmware/efi/efivars type efivarfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/unified type cgroup2 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,xattr,name=systemd)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls,net_prio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/devices type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpu,cpuacct)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,perf_event)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/pids type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,pids)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=25,pgrp=1,timeout=0,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,relatime)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,relatime)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw,relatime,pagesize=2M)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
configfs on /sys/kernel/config type configfs (rw,relatime)
/dev/sdb2 on /boot type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)
tmpfs on /run/user/120 type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=1644788k,mode=700,uid=120,gid=120)
tmpfs on /run/user/1000 type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=1644788k,mode=700,uid=1000,gid=1000)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,relatime)
/dev/sdc2 on /run/media/mike/External 2 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096,uhelper=udisks2)
/dev/sdd2 on /run/media/mike/External type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096,uhelper=udisks2)

Edit: I ran these commands after booting in with no externals connected, and then connecting them both. Let me know if you meant to try booting with one then run the commands, then boot with the other and run them again.

Last edited by mries92 (2017-10-09 00:28:45)

Trilby · 2017-10-09 00:32:33

I'm guessing there is an efi partition on one of those drives. So when they are plugged in the firmware reads *that* efi partition and all the errors are from there - so not even your arch.conf is relevant. You need to set the boot priority of your firmware. Alternatively, if you no longer need the efi partition on those other drives, remove it.

EDIT: oops, there is only one EFI. The EFI partition on what is listed as sdb2 is what you intend to boot to, right?

Could those MS recovery/reserved partitions act as efi?

Last edited by Trilby (2017-10-09 00:35:17)

mries92 · 2017-10-09 00:43:44

Trilby, yes that is correct. sdb2 is my EFI partition from my windows drive which is what I am booting to. I thought it might have been an efi partition on the externals as you said, but like I said before they boot fine when only one is connected, and it doesn't matter which one it is.

loqs · 2017-10-09 00:49:47

Can you post a link to a screenshot of what I think is a kernel panic that occurs when boot external drives are connected at boot?
Perhaps the backtrace might provide insight into the issue.
Text would be preferable but without a serial port which most newer none server systems lack that is difficult to achieve.

mries92 · 2017-10-09 00:51:22

Alright loqs, I will get a screenshot now. There really isn't too much information to go on though.

loqs · 2017-10-09 00:53:50

Only other suggestion would be install and test the linux-lts kernel in case it is related to linux 4.13.

mries92 · 2017-10-09 00:55:59

Alright here is a screenshot of what I am getting.

https://imgur.com/a/IT7Kr

loqs · 2017-10-09 01:14:14

arch/x86/boot/compressed/eboot.c exit_boot is failing indicating a failure in either efi_exit_boot_services or setup_e820
possible kernel or firmware issue was expecting the failure to be later on and provide more information.

Arch Linux

#1 2017-10-08 17:47:11

Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#2 2017-10-08 17:59:49

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#3 2017-10-08 18:04:34

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#4 2017-10-08 18:10:10

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#5 2017-10-08 18:10:39

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#6 2017-10-08 18:26:07

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#7 2017-10-08 18:37:43

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#8 2017-10-08 23:53:18

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#9 2017-10-08 23:58:06

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#10 2017-10-09 00:13:20

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#11 2017-10-09 00:27:46

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#12 2017-10-09 00:32:33

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#13 2017-10-09 00:43:44

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#14 2017-10-09 00:49:47

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#15 2017-10-09 00:51:22

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#16 2017-10-09 00:53:50

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#17 2017-10-09 00:55:59

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

#18 2017-10-09 01:14:14

Re: Cannot boot Arch when external hard drives are plugged in

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