Arch Linux

johnsmith0x3f

Member

Registered: 2024-03-08

Posts: 8

[SOLVED] Failed to mount /boot, emergency mode no response.

Hi!

Last night I upgraded my packages with

sudo pacman -Syyu

and when I restart I have

[FAILED] Failed to mount /boot.
See 'systemctl status boot.mount' for details.
[    1.984618] systemd[1]: Dependency failed for Local File Systems.
[DEPEND] Dependency failed for Local File Systems.
...
[    2.830035] usb 3-2.3: device descriptor read/64, error -32
...
You are in emergency mode. After logging in, type "journalctl -xb" to view
system logs, "systemctl reboot" to reboot, or "exit"
to continue bootup.
Give roor password for maintenance
(or press Control-D to continue):

But after I typed the password and pressed Enter, nothing happened, same as pressing Control-D. So how can I successfully log in? Or if I cannot, is there any other way to fix this?

Last edited by johnsmith0x3f (2024-08-12 17:04:04)

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 9,003

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Failed to mount /boot, emergency mode no response.

Use a live ISO image to (arch-)chroot in and then re-install the kernel with the root and /boot/ partitions correctly mounted in the chroot.

Then try to find out why /boot/ wasn't mounted when the kernel was last updated. And perhaps check the EFI system partition filesystem for errors.

I'm curious: why did you pass -y twice when upgrading? We see that a lot here and it is quite strange.

---

Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

johnsmith0x3f

Member

Registered: 2024-03-08

Posts: 8

Re: [SOLVED] Failed to mount /boot, emergency mode no response.

Hello Head_on_a_Stick!

I followed your advice and successfully got my arch booted, didn't find out why it failed before the reinstall though. But I think it might be related to NVIDIA because I was messing with it before upgrading and rebooting to make my secondary monitor detected. If you have any advice on finding such reason, I will be happy to hear. As for the -Syyu thing, I read from the pacman man page that passing the -y twice will force refresh even for the up-to-date packages. So I suppose it just prolongs the installation process and will not cause any serious problems, and I use it in case I have any files missing or so.

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,828

Re: [SOLVED] Failed to mount /boot, emergency mode no response.

-y, --refresh

Download a fresh copy of the master package databases (repo.db) from the server(s) defined in pacman.conf(5). This should typically be used each time you use --sysupgrade or -u. Passing two --refresh or -y flags will force a refresh of all package databases, even if they appear to be up-to-date.

Doing this habitually is a great way to shred your local database and cause undue costs for the mirror providers.

The usual cause to break /boot mouting is to get installed and booting kernel out of sync, hence lacking the vfat module.

cat /proc/cmdline

If this shows the kernel relative to a /boot path, you're booting from the root partition, if it says BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-linux you're booting from a boot partition and proably forgot or failed to mount that before the kernel update (check lsblk -f and your fstab)

Please always remember to mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

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