Arch Linux

sky64redstone

Member

Registered: 2025-02-02

Posts: 7

Dependency failed for Root FS | Additional SSD

Hi, I have previously bought an additional ssd for my arch linux pc.
I haven't reinstalled the OS.
Now it refuses to correctly boot up (but only sometimes). It outputs:

[ TIME ] Timed out waiting for device /dev/nvme0n1p3
[DEPEND] Dependency failed for /sysroot.
[DEPEND] Dependency failed for Initrd Root File System.
[DEPEND] Dependency failed for Mountpoints Configured in the Real Root.
[DEPEND] Dependency failed for Initrd Root Device.
[DEPEND] Dependency failed for File System Check on /dev/nvme0n1p3
You are in emergency mode. After logging in, type "journalctl -xb" to view
system logs, "systemctl reboot" to reboot, or "exit"
to continue bootup.

Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked.
See sulogin(8) man page for more details.

Press enter to continue

And when I press enter the same message appears again, I don't get a shell and need to force shutdown my pc.

The steps I took for installing my ssd and mounting it in my installation of arch linux:

$ sudo fdisk /dev/nvme1n1
then inside fdisk:
g       # create a new GPT partition table
n       # create a new partition
Enter   # accept partition number 1
Enter   # accept default first sector
Enter   # use the remaining disk
w       # write changes
$ sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme1n1p1
$ sudoedit /etc/fstab
and there I added:
UUID=<valid-uuid>  /mnt/crucial  ext4  defaults  0  2
$ sudo chown "$USER:$USER" /mnt/crucial
$ sudo systemctl reboot

and then it worked.
I moved files from my previous ssd to the new one and created symlinks for those directories
e.g. /home/sky/Documents -> /mnt/crucial/Documents
I have rebooted since then a few times and it always worked, until now.

Some more information:

[sky ~]$ cat /etc/fstab
# Static information about the filesystems.
# See fstab(5) for details.

# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# /dev/nvme0n1p3
UUID=<valid-uuid>	/         	ext4      	rw,relatime	0 1

# /dev/nvme0n1p1
UUID=<valid-uuid>      	/boot     	vfat      	rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro	0 2

# /dev/nvme0n1p2
UUID=<valid-uuid>	none      	swap      	defaults  	0 0

# dev/nvme1n1p1
UUID=<valid-uuid> /mnt/crucial ext4 defaults 0 2
[sky ~]$ slsblk -o NAME,SIZE,FSTYPE,FSVER,LABEL,MOUNTPOINTS
NAME          SIZE FSTYPE  FSVER            LABEL       MOUNTPOINTS
sda           1,9G iso9660 Joliet Extension ARCH_202412
├─sda1        984M iso9660 Joliet Extension ARCH_202412
└─sda2        177M vfat    FAT32            ARCHISO_EFI
nvme0n1     465,8G
├─nvme0n1p1     1G vfat    FAT32                        /boot
├─nvme0n1p2    32G swap    1                            [SWAP]
└─nvme0n1p3 432,8G ext4    1.0                          /
nvme1n1       1,8T
└─nvme1n1p1   1,8T ext4    1.0                          /mnt/crucial
[sky ~]$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 465,76 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 500GB
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: <valid-uuid>

Device            Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1     2048   2099199   2097152     1G EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2  2099200  69208063  67108864    32G Linux swap
/dev/nvme0n1p3 69208064 976773119 907565056 432,8G Linux filesystem


Disk /dev/nvme1n1: 1,82 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Disk model: CT2000P310SSD8
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: <valid-uuid>

Device         Start        End    Sectors  Size Type
/dev/nvme1n1p1  2048 3907028991 3907026944  1,8T Linux filesystem


Disk /dev/sda: 1,86 GiB, 1992294400 bytes, 3891200 sectors
Disk model: UDisk
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x382d5c21

Device     Boot   Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *         64 2015231 2015168  984M  0 Empty
/dev/sda2       2015232 2377727  362496  177M ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
[sky ~]$ sudo blkid
/dev/nvme0n1p3: UUID="<valid-uuid>" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="<partuuid>"
/dev/nvme0n1p1: UUID="<valid-uuid>" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="<partuuid>"
/dev/nvme0n1p2: UUID="<valid-uuid>" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="<partuuid>"
/dev/nvme1n1p1: UUID="<valid-uuid>" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="<partuuid>"
/dev/sda2: LABEL_FATBOOT="ARCHISO_EFI" LABEL="ARCHISO_EFI" UUID="<valid-uuid>" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="<partuuid>"
/dev/sda1: BLOCK_SIZE="2048" UUID="<valid-uuid>" LABEL="ARCH_202412" TYPE="iso9660" PARTUUID="<partuuid>"

/dev/sda is just a usb stick I plugged in after the boot failed. It has arch installed on it.
I also found this post: Timed out waiting for device /dev/.<truncated-uuid> under Hyper-V which might be related

Last edited by sky64redstone (Yesterday 11:35:41)

-thc

Member

Registered: 2017-03-15

Posts: 1,183

Re: Dependency failed for Root FS | Additional SSD

To sum up your post:

You added another (second) NVMe drive just for storing data under "/mnt/crucial" and immediately following that the boot times out sometimes?

Have you tried (just for testing) to remove the second drive and booting several times?

Last edited by -thc (Yesterday 14:04:43)

sky64redstone

Member

Registered: 2025-02-02

Posts: 7

Re: Dependency failed for Root FS | Additional SSD

You added another (second) NVMe drive just for storing data under "/mnt/crucial" and immediately following that the boot times out sometimes?

Yes, well kinda... I understood from the boot message that my main drive has a problem with one of its dependencies. I have created soft links for sub-directories in my home directory to directories on my new drive, so I thought that the new drive wasn't mounted correctly.

Have you tried (just for testing) to remove the second drive and booting several times?

I didn't, but now I have. Every time I tried to start my computer without my new drive, it didn't work. I'm starting to think this is a problem with the hardware, not the software. Since I put the SSD back into my PC, it has always worked. Maybe I didn't connect the hard drive properly to the motherboard, and that caused a loose connection?

-thc

Member

Registered: 2017-03-15

Posts: 1,183

Re: Dependency failed for Root FS | Additional SSD

A defect on your old SSD is one possibility. Another is a possible restriction of your motherboard. Depending on the bus architecture you may only insert PCIe 3/4/5 devices into some slots and not others.