Arch Linux

ordinary.schreiber

Member

Registered: 2021-10-15

Posts: 146

[SOLVED]Arch boots only in "fallback initramfs" mode after BIOS update

I found similar articles for this issue, but unfortunately none of them seemed to match with this case...

So, I'm runnning Arch from the "sdc" drive on a machine with the followig drives' boot order:

• #1 sda

  - where I have dual-boot with Ubuntu and Windows, and Ubuntu has GRUB managing the boot of all other drives and partitions.

• #2 sdc

  - with Arch (which also has his own GRUB).

• #3 sdb

  - which is a HDD used as deposit for additional storage.

I upgraded the BIOS (Foxconn BC5F1P04) and the CPU. And, while Ubuntu still boots correctly, now Arch (either from Ubuntu's GRUB or Arch's GRUB) won't boot normally. It gets stuck on error message:

Starting version 249.6-3-arch
ERROR: device 'UUID=6c972695-7703-4d64-bb66-d0ef31c90b02' not found. Skipping fsck.
mount: /new_root: can't find UUID=6c972695-7703-4d64-bb66-d0ef31c90b02.
Your are now being dropped into an emergency shell.
sh: can't access tty: job control turned off
[rootfs ]# _

But it boots correctly in advanced mode "fallback initframfs".

Any idea about what might cause this?

Last edited by ordinary.schreiber (2021-11-14 22:23:02)

jaystrictor

Member

Registered: 2013-05-11

Posts: 9

Re: [SOLVED]Arch boots only in "fallback initramfs" mode after BIOS update

You should check the currently used UUIDs in /etc/fstab and compare them with the actual UUIDs of your hard drives in /dev/disk/by-uuid/ or by looking at

lsblk -f

ordinary.schreiber

Member

Registered: 2021-10-15

Posts: 146

Re: [SOLVED]Arch boots only in "fallback initramfs" mode after BIOS update

Thank you for the fast reply.

Here is /etc/fastab

# /dev/sdb3
UUID=6c972695-7703-4d64-bb66-d0ef31c90b02       /               ext4            rw,relatime     0 1

# /dev/sdb2
UUID=abbeadf8-f3ba-40ea-8ef8-896e30fe5ae6       none            swap            defaults        0 0

and here /dev/disk/by-uuid/

177e0ba0-1f8b-4988-b5dc-ff39994ed7eb  af6e10d8-5ae9-4bae-82b4-33e4cc09aace
6c972695-7703-4d64-bb66-d0ef31c90b02  B64E18584E1813A9
83CC-3A42                             D06843EC6843CFC0
9E6EF5EE6EF5BF59                      D244F85244F83B35
a246769c-4ad5-4289-a3cd-9bb922c0780c  ed204834-59ac-4a9f-8b0f-0105aeead0e8
abbeadf8-f3ba-40ea-8ef8-896e30fe5ae6  EEA85101A850C9AB

I'm not sure how to interpret this though.

As a start... I see that Arch seems now to be on "sdb", but I'm sure it was on "sdc".

I don't if that might be the issue...

Last edited by ordinary.schreiber (2021-11-13 10:54:16)

ordinary.schreiber

Member

Registered: 2021-10-15

Posts: 146

Re: [SOLVED]Arch boots only in "fallback initramfs" mode after BIOS update

Here is also the output of lsblk -f:

# lsblk -f
NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL               UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda                                                                                       
└─sda1
     ntfs         Volume              B64E18584E1813A9                       64,7G    72% /run/media/archer/Volume
sdb                                                                                       
├─sdb1
│    ntfs         Riservato per il sistema
│                                     D06843EC6843CFC0                                    
├─sdb2
│    ntfs                             EEA85101A850C9AB                                    
├─sdb3
│    ntfs                             D244F85244F83B35                                    
├─sdb4
│                                                                                         
├─sdb5
│    vfat   FAT32                     83CC-3A42                                           
├─sdb6
│    ext4   1.0                       a246769c-4ad5-4289-a3cd-9bb922c0780c                
├─sdb7
│    swap   1                         177e0ba0-1f8b-4988-b5dc-ff39994ed7eb                
└─sdb8
     ext4   1.0                       af6e10d8-5ae9-4bae-82b4-33e4cc09aace                
sdc                                                                                       
└─sdc1
     ntfs         Deposito            9E6EF5EE6EF5BF59                       94,4G    37% /run/media/archer/Deposito

It looks like the drives' names are completely different from before.

I'm dead sure the drive with dual-boot was "sda", but it now seems to be "sdb".
Arch seems on "sda", and the current "sdc" is the HDD which was on "sdb".

Last edited by ordinary.schreiber (2021-11-13 11:02:05)

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,726

Re: [SOLVED]Arch boots only in "fallback initramfs" mode after BIOS update

Regenerate your initramfs.

jaystrictor

Member

Registered: 2013-05-11

Posts: 9

Re: [SOLVED]Arch boots only in "fallback initramfs" mode after BIOS update

It looks like the drives' names are completely different from before.

That's not a surprise. Disk names under /dev/sd* are not required to stay the same even from one reboot the the next reboot. You updated the BIOS and probably with this upgrade, the order of disk drives changed.

This is why you should use UUIDs in files like /etc/fstab. However, there should be the same UUIDs in /dev/disk/by-uuid/ and in the output of fstab -f. This seems not to be the case in your example: 6c972695-7703-4d64-bb66-d0ef31c90b02 does not occur in the output of lsblk -f. Did you enter both commands in the same console session, that is directly in succession?

You can check to which file under /dev/sd* the UUID points to by typing in

ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/6c972695-7703-4d64-bb66-d0ef31c90b02

Last edited by jaystrictor (2021-11-13 16:27:13)

ordinary.schreiber

Member

Registered: 2021-10-15

Posts: 146

Re: [SOLVED]Arch boots only in "fallback initramfs" mode after BIOS update

Here is the output of /etc/fstab, lsblk and /dev/disk/by-uuid from the same console session:

$ cat /etc/fstab
# /dev/sdb3
UUID=6c972695-7703-4d64-bb66-d0ef31c90b02       /               ext4            rw,relatime     0 1

# /dev/sdb2
UUID=abbeadf8-f3ba-40ea-8ef8-896e30fe5ae6       none            swap            defaults        0 0

$ lsblk -f
NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL            UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda                                                                                    
├─sda1
│    ntfs         Riservato per il sistema
│                                  D06843EC6843CFC0                                    
├─sda2
│    ntfs                          EEA85101A850C9AB                                    
├─sda3
│    ntfs                          D244F85244F83B35                                    
├─sda4
│                                                                                      
├─sda5
│    vfat   FAT32                  83CC-3A42                                           
├─sda6
│    ext4   1.0                    a246769c-4ad5-4289-a3cd-9bb922c0780c                
├─sda7
│    swap   1                      177e0ba0-1f8b-4988-b5dc-ff39994ed7eb                
└─sda8
     ext4   1.0                    af6e10d8-5ae9-4bae-82b4-33e4cc09aace                
sdb                                                                                    
└─sdb1
     ntfs         Deposito         9E6EF5EE6EF5BF59                       94,4G    37% /run/media/archer/Deposito
sdc                                                                                    
├─sdc1
│    btrfs                         ed204834-59ac-4a9f-8b0f-0105aeead0e8                
├─sdc2
│    swap   1                      abbeadf8-f3ba-40ea-8ef8-896e30fe5ae6                [SWAP]
└─sdc3
     ext4   1.0                    6c972695-7703-4d64-bb66-d0ef31c90b02  174,4G    12% /
sdd                                                                                    
└─sdd1
     ntfs         Volume           4E4688454688302F                       14,3G     0% /run/media/archer/Volume

$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid
totale 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 14 nov 21.58 177e0ba0-1f8b-4988-b5dc-ff39994ed7eb -> ../../sda7
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 14 nov 22.49 4E4688454688302F -> ../../sdd1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 14 nov 21.58 6c972695-7703-4d64-bb66-d0ef31c90b02 -> ../../sdc3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 14 nov 21.58 83CC-3A42 -> ../../sda5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 14 nov 22.29 9E6EF5EE6EF5BF59 -> ../../sdb1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 14 nov 21.58 a246769c-4ad5-4289-a3cd-9bb922c0780c -> ../../sda6
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 14 nov 21.58 abbeadf8-f3ba-40ea-8ef8-896e30fe5ae6 -> ../../sdc2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 14 nov 21.58 af6e10d8-5ae9-4bae-82b4-33e4cc09aace -> ../../sda8
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 14 nov 21.58 D06843EC6843CFC0 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 14 nov 21.58 D244F85244F83B35 -> ../../sda3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 14 nov 21.58 ed204834-59ac-4a9f-8b0f-0105aeead0e8 -> ../../sdc1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 14 nov 21.58 EEA85101A850C9AB -> ../../sda2

For what I can see in all three outputs my UUID points always to sdc3. Which is the same name it had before the BIOS upgrade.

Although, I keep getting this error on boot:

Starting version 249.6-3-arch
ERROR: device 'UUID=6c972695-7703-4d64-bb66-d0ef31c90b02' not found. Skipping fsck.
mount: /new_root: can't find UUID=6c972695-7703-4d64-bb66-d0ef31c90b02.
Your are now being dropped into an emergency shell.
sh: can't access tty: job control turned off
[rootfs ]# _

How can I fix this?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,223

Re: [SOLVED]Arch boots only in "fallback initramfs" mode after BIOS update

Have you tried regenerating your initramfs yet? On UEFI systems i'd normally suspect a RAID mode or so that got enabled on the HDD controller, maybe check for a setting in that direction, should be AHCI to boot with the default initramfs

Last edited by V1del (2021-11-14 22:13:17)

ordinary.schreiber

Member

Registered: 2021-10-15

Posts: 146

Re: [SOLVED]Arch boots only in "fallback initramfs" mode after BIOS update

Nevermind... the problem seems to be solved by itself.

I just rebooted once again to make sure it kept showing that error, and instead it booted correctly without needing "fallback initramfs".

I honestly don't know what fixed it... I genuinely didn't do anything but running the commands above to show you guys the outputs.