Dropped into emergency shell on fresh install

eyes · 2021-10-26 20:07:53

I am a new arch user, and successfully installed arch in a VM. Upon performing a full install on my laptop and booting into the new system I ran into this issue:

Starting version 249.5-2-arch
ERROR: device 'UUID=4be...faa3d' not found. Skipping fsck.
mount: /new_root: can't find UUID=4be...faa3d.
You are now being dropped into an emergency shell.
sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
[rootfs ]#

where "UUID=4be...faa3d" is my /dev/nvme0n1p3 root partition UUID.

Initially, I had some extra partitions, but in order to eliminate variables I tried a textbook install (even in the same partition order as listed in the table on the wiki) and came up with the same problem.

I've done the following specific things which are either not necessarily textbook or are from forum posts of people with similar issues:

-tried giving root partition type "Linux x86-64 root" as well as the default "Linux filesystem" (i don't think this is particularly important but I've seen it done the latter way in a lot of tutorials and the former in the arch wiki. I guess it doesn't matter?)
-used "mkinitcpio -p linux" specifically
-installed intel-ucode and used grub-mkconfig afterwards, which successfully recognized the microcode update.

I have NOT performed any of the network configuration steps beyond setting a hostname. Again, this doesn't seem relevant but I'm mentioning it because I'm new and it's one way that I think I have slightly veered from the archwiki install guide.

Any help is appreciated, I've bricked my school computer for this, rip.

V1del · 2021-10-26 22:36:20

If you are absolutely certain you used the correct UUID what can often happen here is that newer laptops have a RAID mode enabled on the disk that is not yet enabled by default in the generated initramfs. Check your UEFI whether you can switch the drive to AHCI mode from RAID, otherwise boot the live disk back up, mount all your partitions, arch-chroot in and edit the MODULES line to

MODULES=( vmd )

to your /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and run

mkinitcpio -P

Last edited by V1del (2021-10-26 22:37:41)

eyes · 2021-10-27 00:32:15

Just went straight to adding vmd and it immediately worked. thanks so much.

Stratoblaster · 2021-11-22 20:23:25

This error is also happening to me this past weekend. On an install of the same laptop just last month ago - this was not an issue.
I know that my setup (bios wise) has not changed and I'm still using the same drives as of a month ago.
AHCI is still set on my laptop. Also note that this is NOT a VM install.

Something has changed ... and it's not my hardware.

Last edited by Stratoblaster (2021-11-22 20:28:07)

Stratoblaster · 2021-11-22 20:34:43

Interesting - Looking at the thread below, this seems to have been an issue in the past.
I'll give it a shot over the next day or so and see if this takes care of it.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=239805

Slithery · 2021-11-22 20:35:34

Stratoblaster wrote:

Something has changed ... and it's not my hardware.

Correct.
It's a known bug in mkinitcpio.

Stratoblaster · 2021-11-22 20:39:53

Slithery wrote:

Stratoblaster wrote:
Something has changed ... and it's not my hardware.
Correct.
It's a known bug in mkinitcpio.

Thank you for confirming that I have not last my mind
I am hoping that the thread I found allows me to work around this.

Arch Linux

#1 2021-10-26 20:07:53

Dropped into emergency shell on fresh install

#2 2021-10-26 22:36:20

Re: Dropped into emergency shell on fresh install

#3 2021-10-27 00:32:15

Re: Dropped into emergency shell on fresh install

#4 2021-11-22 20:23:25

Re: Dropped into emergency shell on fresh install

#5 2021-11-22 20:34:43

Re: Dropped into emergency shell on fresh install

#6 2021-11-22 20:35:34

Re: Dropped into emergency shell on fresh install

#7 2021-11-22 20:39:53

Re: Dropped into emergency shell on fresh install

Board footer