[SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

quirico · 2018-07-17 13:53:15

https://s22.postimg.cc/6bber66pr/IMG_20 … 112812.jpg
This omnious screen showed up after I performed a major Windows 10 upgrade(I dual boot Windows and Arch Linux on the same drive), but I'm not sure if it was the cause. Unfortunately the system is in Italian, so I'm not sure what the error text is like in English, but it should be something like

Loading Linux linux
Error: premature end of file /vmlinuz-linux.
Loading initial ramdisk
Error: you need to load the kernel first
Press a key to continue

I can access GRUB and boot into Windows just fine, however trying to boot with the fallback kernel still gets me to the same error screen. I don't know how to fix it, can I even recover this system?

-- Mod note: Converted oversized image to URL, please follow the CoC on image sizes -- V1del

Last edited by quirico (2018-07-20 20:18:14)

seth · 2018-07-17 14:07:27

Boot a live system (the install iso will do) and inspect the boot partition. You're probably short on space and windows created some BOFH style…
Chroot into the installed system, ensure to mount the boot partition and re-install linux, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pa … _rebooting

Of course, you may have to free some space on the boot partition first.

V1del · 2018-07-17 14:14:36

Please only paste thumbnails or links to huge screenshots like that: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … s_and_code

quirico · 2018-07-17 14:43:13

seth wrote:

Boot a live system (the install iso will do) and inspect the boot partition. You're probably short on space and windows created some BOFH style…
Chroot into the installed system, ensure to mount the boot partition and re-install linux, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pa … _rebooting
Of course, you may have to free some space on the boot partition first.

How do I safely free up space in /boot?

seth · 2018-07-17 15:05:29

Depends on whether there're disposable files. Backups or i18n related files are good candidates.
However, first ensure that it's really a space issue and also be prepared that windows might keep dumping stuff there. If this ends up being a permanent issue, you'll have to grow the partition (what's gonna be PITA because of it's position) or move the linux boot to another partition.

Is this an EFI or a BIOS boot?

quirico · 2018-07-17 19:58:15

seth wrote:

Depends on whether there're disposable files. Backups or i18n related files are good candidates.
However, first ensure that it's really a space issue and also be prepared that windows might keep dumping stuff there. If this ends up being a permanent issue, you'll have to grow the partition (what's gonna be PITA because of it's position) or move the linux boot to another partition.
Is this an EFI or a BIOS boot?

It is an EFI boot. I'll get to work tomorrow.

quirico · 2018-07-19 10:00:49

OK I'm in the installation CD right now, how do I check the remaining free space? The output of df -h doesn't show me the partitions in my hard drive.

radiomike · 2018-07-19 10:50:20

Have you mounted the boot partition?

quirico · 2018-07-19 13:46:09

radiomike wrote:

Have you mounted the boot partition?

I did, still not showing up. But root partition shows up just fine.
EDIT: running df -h -a shows https://s22.postimg.cc/n4dk6hlb5/IMG_20 … 155010.jpg which I have no idea of what to make out of.

Last edited by quirico (2018-07-19 13:53:40)

seth · 2018-07-19 14:13:58

You mounted sda1 and sda4 both into /mnt …

Please do not paste pictures of text - paste the text.

quirico · 2018-07-19 14:52:46

seth wrote:

Boot a live system (the install iso will do) and inspect the boot partition. You're probably short on space and windows created some BOFH style…
Chroot into the installed system, ensure to mount the boot partition and re-install linux, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pa … _rebooting
Of course, you may have to free some space on the boot partition first.

I'm back to square one. First off, I actually managed to ensure it is not a space issue, somehow I got df to show the right output. Then I followed the instructions in the wiki word for word, and managed to perform a full update with pacman, with a seemingly successful rebuild of the Linux kernel. However upon reboot nothing seemed to chance. While pacman was doing its thing I glanced at a message saying "/boot is not mounted", maybe I messed up something in the process. I'd really appreciate a step to step guide right now...

quirico · 2018-07-19 14:58:05

seth wrote:

You mounted sda1 and sda4 both into /mnt …
Please do not paste pictures of text - paste the text.

I am afraid something went over my head... am I not supposed to do it that way?... Sorry if it is incredibly stupid but it is probably the frustration and confusion getting the best of me, I suck at staying concentrated when troubleshooting

ewaller · 2018-07-19 15:10:38

quirico wrote:

seth wrote:
You mounted sda1 and sda4 both into /mnt …
Please do not paste pictures of text - paste the text.
I am afraid something went over my head... am I not supposed to do it that way?... Sorry if it is incredibly stupid but it is probably the frustration and confusion getting the best of me, I suck at staying concentrated when troubleshooting

You want to mount the root partition on /mnt. Then, inside of that partition (/mnt) there is to be a directory called /boot. Initially, you create that. You use that directory /mnt/boot to mount your boot partition.
Then you perform the installation. Then you unmount /mnt/boot, then /mnt. You set your bootloader to tell the kernel to use the root partition. You should have (during the installation) built your /etc/fstab file to mount the boot partition on /boot. If you have not done that already, do it now.

Last edited by ewaller (2018-07-19 15:12:28)

quirico · 2018-07-19 15:25:28

ewaller wrote:

You set your bootloader to tell the kernel to use the root partition. You should have (during the installation) built your /etc/fstab file to mount the boot partition on /boot. If you have not done that already, do it now.

This is something that is all done during installation and doesn't need to be redone now, right? If so, I have already done that obviously, as I had a fully working Arch install for over a year prior to this happening.

ewaller · 2018-07-19 15:35:49

Is your system booted now? What is the output of the mount command? Post the full text; not a photo.

quirico · 2018-07-20 18:47:03

ewaller wrote:

Is your system booted now? What is the output of the mount command? Post the full text; not a photo.

# mount
/dev/sda4 on /mnt type ext4 (rw,realtime)
/dev/sda1 on /mnt/boot type vfat (rw,realtime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro)

This means I'm good to go, right?

loqs · 2018-07-20 19:09:28

Now you can post `df -h /mnt/boot`

quirico · 2018-07-20 19:40:16

loqs wrote:

Now you can post `df -h /mnt/boot`

Size 256M, Used 80M, Use% 32%. Most likely not a full partition issue. While I am at it might as well post some pacman errors that I got while trying to reinstall mkinitcpio, linux and systemd yesterday, with the boot partition not mounted properly

[ALMP] upgraded linux (4.17.3-1 -> 4.17.6-1)
[ALPM-SCRIPTLET] WARNING: /boot appears to be a separate partition but is not mounted.
[ALPM] running 'systemd-binfmt.hook'...
[ALPM-SCRIPTLET] Skipped: Current root is not booted.
[ALPM] running 'systemd-daemon-reload.hook'...
[ALPM-SCRIPTLET] Skipped: Current root is not booted.
[ALPM] running 'systemd-sysctl.hook'...
[ALPM-SCRIPTLET] Skipped: Current root is not booted.
[ALPM] running 'systemd-udev-reload.hook'...
[ALPM-SCRIPTLET] Skipped: Device manager is not running.

I understand the linux error but not the systemd errors, what do they mean?

seth · 2018-07-20 19:44:03

That you're running "pacman --sysroot" - the critical one is about the unmounted boot partition, so re-install the kernel again (w/ the now mounted /boot partition)

quirico · 2018-07-20 19:45:16

seth wrote:

That you're running "pacman --sysroot" - the critical one is about the unmounted boot partition, so re-install the kernel again (w/ the now mounted /boot partition)

So if I understand correctly, the systemd errors are inconsequential, right?

seth · 2018-07-20 19:48:34

Those are no "errors", not even "warnings" - you're merely informed that certain steps are not executed because it would be ill-advised in this context.

quirico · 2018-07-20 20:17:42

Fixed it, finally. To summarize the steps I followed
>booted into LiveCD
>mounted the root and boot partitions, properly.
>reinstalled mkinitcpio, linux and systemd
>rebooted
Now the system is running fine again, as if nothing happened . In hindsight it was pretty easy but that's noob mistakes for you...

Arch Linux

#1 2018-07-17 13:53:15

[SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#2 2018-07-17 14:07:27

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#3 2018-07-17 14:14:36

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#4 2018-07-17 14:43:13

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#5 2018-07-17 15:05:29

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#6 2018-07-17 19:58:15

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#7 2018-07-19 10:00:49

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#8 2018-07-19 10:50:20

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#9 2018-07-19 13:46:09

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#10 2018-07-19 14:13:58

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#11 2018-07-19 14:52:46

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#12 2018-07-19 14:58:05

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#13 2018-07-19 15:10:38

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#14 2018-07-19 15:25:28

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#15 2018-07-19 15:35:49

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#16 2018-07-20 18:47:03

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#17 2018-07-20 19:09:28

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#18 2018-07-20 19:40:16

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#19 2018-07-20 19:44:03

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#20 2018-07-20 19:45:16

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#21 2018-07-20 19:48:34

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

#22 2018-07-20 20:17:42

Re: [SOLVED] Error: you need to load the kernel first

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