Arch Linux

rharris

Member

Registered: 2023-06-01

Posts: 2

[SOLVED] Unable to boot (error: file '/boot/vmlinuz-linux' not found.)

After upgrading my system, attempting to boot into Arch results in the following error:

Loading Linux linux
error: file '/boot/vmlinuz-linux' not found.
Loading inital ramdisk ...
error: you need to load the kernel first.

Press any key to continue...

What I've tried:

Using a USB with an Arch ISO, I've tried the following commands:

# mount the system:
$ mkdir /rescue
$ mount /dev/sda1 /rescue
$ mount /dev/sda3 /rescue/boot
$ mount -t proc proc /rescue/proc
$ mount -t sysfs sys /rescue sys
$ mount -o bind /dev /rescue/dev
$ mount -t devpts pts /rescue/dev/pts

# chroot into system:
$ chroot /rescue /bin/bash

# Reinstall the kernel:
$ mkinitcpio -P
$ pacman -Syu linux

Rebooting after this does not change the result however, which is unusual to me since doing ls -alt /boot shows that the vmlinuz-linux, initramfs-linux.img, and initramfs-linux-fallback.img files have had their timestamps changed after those last two commands. Is there something I'm doing wrong or missing that would resolve this issue?

Last edited by rharris (2023-06-01 18:15:11)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,430

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to boot (error: file '/boot/vmlinuz-linux' not found.)

If your chroot sequence is any indication, then your bootloader config is wrong. Assuming /boot is an ESP or so, the definition of your bootloader loading line should be looking for /vmlinz-linux instead of /boot since you have to give paths from the logical perspective of the bootloader which would make /vmlinuz-linux it's root.

If the above confuses you, which bootloader are you using and from the chroot, what's your output of

lsblk -f
ls -l /boot
unmount /boot
ls -l /boot

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/List_o … n_services

rharris

Member

Registered: 2023-06-01

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to boot (error: file '/boot/vmlinuz-linux' not found.)

If your chroot sequence is any indication, then your bootloader config is wrong. Assuming /boot is an ESP or so, the definition of your bootloader loading line should be looking for /vmlinz-linux instead of /boot since you have to give paths from the logical perspective of the bootloader which would make /vmlinuz-linux it's root.

If the above confuses you, which bootloader are you using and from the chroot, what's your output of

lsblk -f
ls -l /boot
unmount /boot
ls -l /boot

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/List_o … n_services

Thanks for your reply, I was able to figure out the problem with this.

The contents of my /boot folder was different from my mounted boot partition. When unmounted, the /boot folder only had a grub folder inside. Following the same steps I did in the original post except for mounting the boot partition fixed the problem. No configuration changes to the bootloader were necessary.

I can only assume something just went wrong with the upgrade process to cause this, since I haven't had any issues with booting since installing Arch 2-3 years ago...

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,430

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to boot (error: file '/boot/vmlinuz-linux' not found.)

You might want to check your pacman.log if e.g. image generation failed during the update.

In any case, if you consider this solved please mark it as such by editing the title in your first post.