Arch Linux

ordinary.schreiber

Member

Registered: 2021-10-15

Posts: 137

[SOLVED]System can't find devices at boot and fails to start

Hello, I have Xfce on my Laptop (dual boot with Windows 11) and never encountered this type of issue.

What I did was performing a usual system update via pacman -Syu. Then at reboot the system failed to boot and I got a black screen saying:

ERROR: device 'UUID=108931b1-6e0a-41ef-b67d-220021fd779f' not found. Skipping fsck.
mount: /new_root: can't find UUID=108931b1-6e0a-41ef-b67d-220021fd779f.
ERROR: Failed to mount 'UUID=108931b1-6e0a-41ef-b67d-220021fd779f' or real root.
You are now being dropped into an emergency shell.
sh: can't access tty: job control turned off
[rootfs ~]#

The dual boot with Windows 11 is made from a partition of the same NVMe SSD, and it still works. Can somebody help?

Thank you in advance.

Last edited by ordinary.schreiber (2023-08-23 20:38:21)

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 42,594

Re: [SOLVED]System can't find devices at boot and fails to start

lsblk -f

Don't transcribe that, in doubt link a screenshot

dual boot with Windows 11

ceterum censeo: 3rd link below. Mandatory.
Disable it (it's NOT the BIOS setting!) and reboot windows and linux twice for voodo reasons.

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How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Your xinitrc is broken

ordinary.schreiber

Member

Registered: 2021-10-15

Posts: 137

Re: [SOLVED]System can't find devices at boot and fails to start

Thanks for you suggestion. I tried typing in the command but unfortunately the keyboard is not working, it seems frozen or something.

About disabling the dual boot, can I do that without entering commands? Or how can I solve that first?

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 42,594

Re: [SOLVED]System can't find devices at boot and fails to start

You disable that from windows, actually read the linked wiki.

You might have to fix linux offline, boot the install iso, and post (1st link below) the output of "lsblk -f", then mount the installed system, the boot partition, and also post "pacman -sysroot /mnt -Qs kernel" and "file /mnt/boot/vmlinuz*" outputs.

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How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Your xinitrc is broken

technoir

Member

Registered: 2017-11-16

Posts: 1

Re: [SOLVED]System can't find devices at boot and fails to start

I had exactly the same problem with booting after latest update. The only difference is that I have no dual-booting config.
I've solved this problem with booting from the Arch installation medium, mounting my existing partitions, chrooting into my system and recreating initramfs image with

mkinitcpio -P

ordinary.schreiber

Member

Registered: 2021-10-15

Posts: 137

Re: [SOLVED]System can't find devices at boot and fails to start

mkinitcpio -P

Great, this solved it. Thank you both!

Last edited by ordinary.schreiber (2023-08-23 20:54:03)

balthamaisteri

Member

Registered: 2014-09-02

Posts: 12

Re: [SOLVED]System can't find devices at boot and fails to start

I have this problem few times a month, is there a way to prevent this? mkinitcpio -p fixes it every time.

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 42,594

Re: [SOLVED]System can't find devices at boot and fails to start

Check your pacman log, mkinitcpio is (supposed to be) called whenever you update anything kernel related.
There seems to be an issue w/ that.

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How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Your xinitrc is broken