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#1 2009-02-11 13:38:22

barcode
Member
Registered: 2009-02-09
Posts: 7

kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

Hello

I have a problem upgrading a kernel from installation original to the latest avaiable. What Im doing is:

Install arch
Install newest versions of packages: udev, klibc, mkinitcpio and kernel26 (all by pacman -U, with all dependencies, no errors during upgrade)
New kernel image gets built (default mkinitcpio.conf, the one that worked just after installation, generated by setup program)
Everything goes fine, except the bootup after reset.

Ive got the following message:

...
init 5: /bin/loadkeys not found
...

Failed to parse block device name for /dev/disk/by-uuid/...
unable to create/detect root device

Then I get the ramfs shell but after pressing any key just numlock flashes and the machine hangs.

I tried making image by myself by mkinitcpio, changing mkinitcpio.conf a bit and making it again but with the same result. Grub setup should be ok cause when i change vmlinuz and kernel26.img to their old versions (previously backuped) everything boots fine.

Can you help me with this problem?

PS: When I tried to install klibc I didnt get 300 errors about existing files, but just one: that klibs/bin/mknod exists. So I deleted it (followed by an idea of deleting asm symlink) and tried again - it worked. Is it normal?

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#2 2009-02-11 13:48:03

presario
Member
From: Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Registered: 2008-12-07
Posts: 57
Website

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup


Running ArchLinux on Compaq Presario v2000

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#3 2009-02-11 13:50:24

barcode
Member
Registered: 2009-02-09
Posts: 7

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

I though that was obvious.

barcode wrote:

So I deleted it (followed by an idea of deleting asm symlink)

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#4 2009-02-11 14:29:18

tim
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2006-10-29
Posts: 98

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

Have you tried the steps suggested by blazercist (6th post from the bottom):

http://bbs.archlinux.org:80/viewtopic.php?id=64027

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#5 2009-02-11 15:09:18

barcode
Member
Registered: 2009-02-09
Posts: 7

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

Yes I tried it. I did it again now just to be sure, result is the same as before.

Any other tips?

My system is normal, no raids, ext3 filesystem, no fireworks... Its really weird, can it be an error in mkinitcpio? klibc (why "init 5: /bin/loadkeys not found" error? same is for "kbd_mode")? I have no idea what do to with it...

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#6 2009-02-11 15:15:49

Zariel
Member
Registered: 2008-10-07
Posts: 446

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

Whats your relavent grub menu lines?

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#7 2009-02-11 15:19:33

barcode
Member
Registered: 2009-02-09
Posts: 7

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

this is the main entry:

title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda5 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

fallback behaves in a same way as the normal image. Whats funny I didnt mess with the configuration, just upgraded kernel. As I said before, it is a fresh arch install.

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#8 2009-02-11 15:55:16

perbh
Member
From: Republic of Texas
Registered: 2005-03-04
Posts: 765

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

- and I presume you do not have a seperate boot-partition?
- and that grub is on your mbr?

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#9 2009-02-11 15:59:36

barcode
Member
Registered: 2009-02-09
Posts: 7

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

Yes thats right.

I have one sda5 ext3 partition for all the data and one for swap.
Grub is on mbr at /dev/sda.

Last edited by barcode (2009-02-11 16:00:05)

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#10 2009-02-11 18:01:01

perbh
Member
From: Republic of Texas
Registered: 2005-03-04
Posts: 765

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

I'm sorry 'barcode' - I really don't know why.

For myself - I am an ardent updater (like 4 times a week!!), but its true that my last 'initial' install is probably about 3 years old.

Of lately - there seem to be a lot of trouble with people doing an initial install and then getting into problems. It's almost as if there are 'things' missing in a new install which we don't discover because all we have done is to update.
It makes me think that even for seasoned users - we should go through the trouble of doing a brand new install every once in a while.

<edit>
It's not strictly true what I said above. I have done lots of installs (probably 8-10), but ... I have used pacman -Q[g] to see what packages/groups I have on my first machine and then finally arriving with a long list of packages/groups which I install by "pacman -S `cat {filename}`" - so, in effect, I have just rolled my old (albeit updated) archlinux onto a new computer.
</edit>

Last edited by perbh (2009-02-11 18:07:09)

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#11 2009-03-18 00:02:38

yvonney
Member
Registered: 2008-06-11
Posts: 671

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

i've done 5 hours a day for 2 days now attempting to get either of my exst. usb drives to boot on either of two systems. I've sure learned what I didn't know about chroot etc.

still looking for something.

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#12 2009-04-07 15:45:48

jamtat
Member
Registered: 2008-03-13
Posts: 224

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

Having just done pacman -Syu today, I now have this problem. I simply can't boot into my Arch system anymore. I first tried just editing menu.lst and changing the root file system entry from a UUID number to /dev/sda1 (my main hard drive, with only 1 partition). That didn't work. I tried the mkinitcpio method expalined on the thread linked to above, but that did not work: I get a huge number of "No such file or directory" errors, all having to do with modinfo and depmod. It appears to me mkinitcpio is searching for these utlities in /sbin, but a perusal of that directory reveals that those binaries are not in that directory. A search system-wide finds these binaries in /usr/lib/klibc/sbin. What in the world is going on here? It seems like things are going haywire with Arch.

Can anyone offer further suggestions for how to get my Arch system booting again?

Thanks,
James

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#13 2009-04-07 20:25:43

jamtat
Member
Registered: 2008-03-13
Posts: 224

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

Further information. I've tried booting from the live CD, chroot'ing to Arch, and running mkinitcpio several times now. It seems to me the problem lies with the mkinitcpio process, which returns loads and loads of errors. Most of the error lines say that /sbin/modinfo cannot be found, but a couple say /sbin/depmod can't be found ("no such file or directory"). At the very end of the process, when module generating is being done, some further errors pop up: "/tmp/mkinitcpio . . ./modules.dep does not exist" (neither do modules.alias and modules.symbols, supposed to be in the same /tmp subdirectory). So, what could be going on here?

I should further mention that my fstab file has never, and does not now have, UUID numbers. My disks are designated there by the old-fashioned /dev/sdxX nomenclature. I've edited GRUB's menu.lst to match. The system still will not boot--just as it would not with the UUID numbers in menu.lst.

Halp!

James

Edit: I should add that when the mkinitcpio process gets to the part about actually generating the image it says "SUCCESS"

Last edited by jamtat (2009-04-07 20:37:20)

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#14 2009-04-07 22:31:39

jamtat
Member
Registered: 2008-03-13
Posts: 224

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

Ok. Let's try this. It takes no expertise whatever, really. Can some Arch user with a fairly stock installation please check their /sbin directory and report back in this thread whether a modinfo and/or depmod binary can be found there? That'll give me something to go on.

Thanks,
James

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#15 2009-04-07 23:54:53

jamtat
Member
Registered: 2008-03-13
Posts: 224

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

jamtat wrote:

Can some Arch user with a fairly stock installation please check their /sbin directory and report back in this thread whether a modinfo and/or depmod binary can be found there?

Anyone?

On a related note, some preliminary web searching has revealed that the modinfo and depmod binaries are part of the module-init-tools package. These two binaries are, btw, in the /sbin directory of my Ubuntu machine. I continue going on the assumption that the apparent absence of these binaries from my Arch system may be what's keeping me from being able to boot the system. The logic is that, since the system can't compile needed modules into the initrd owing to absence of theses binaries, it can't find and mount the hard drive. Sound reasonable? Now that I state it that way it doesn't make a whole lotta sense: wouldn't my kernel have modules for finding and mounting an ext3 file system on a regular run-o-the-mill SATA hard drive compiled right in?

To be continued . . .

James

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#16 2009-04-08 00:04:50

peart
Member
From: Kanuckistan
Registered: 2003-07-28
Posts: 510

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

Yes, modinfo and depmod are both in /sbin, and they belong to module-init-tools.  You should be able to chroot into your system from the install CD and reinstall that package to get them back.

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#17 2009-04-08 00:08:59

jamtat
Member
Registered: 2008-03-13
Posts: 224

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

Thanks, peart. I'll give that a try next. How's the weather in Kanuckistan, btw? I'm not too far across the border and it's been a might chilly here.

mebee more later,
James

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#18 2009-04-08 00:23:10

peart
Member
From: Kanuckistan
Registered: 2003-07-28
Posts: 510

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

jamtat wrote:

How's the weather in Kanuckistan, btw?

Snow in April sad  Just when you think winter's over...
Good luck with your troubleshooting!

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#19 2009-04-08 01:20:43

jamtat
Member
Registered: 2008-03-13
Posts: 224

Re: kernel26 - failed to parse block device name error during bootup

Thanks.

Phew! Got the system booting again. I will assume that the absence of those module-init-tools binaries was the source of my problems. Here's what I did.

Booted the system from the live CD and mounted my hard drive at the mount point I created (which happened to be /mnt/sda1). Then, I chroot'ed to the newly-mounted hard drive, brought up the network, and issued pacman -S module-init-tools. I was told that the package was already up-to-date, but I told the system to reinstall it. I then checked /sbin and, lo and behold, both the depmod and modinfo binaries were present. I then exited chroot and did some further mounting (of proc, sys, and /dev) as discussed at the following links: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57150 and http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=65522 . I then chroot'ed once again to the hard drive's mount point and ran pacman -Sf kernel26 to reinstall the kernel (which has the corollary effect of causing mkinitcpio to run). No error messages resulted during the mkinitcpio process this time, which made me very hopeful. I then restored the old menu.lst file (the one with the hard drive specified by UUID, btw) and, on rebooting, the system came up fine.

So I guess the problem in my case is that, somehow, running pacman -Syu caused me to lose those module-init-tools binaries. How that happened is beyond me. But the system seems to be back to normal now. Thanks for your input, peart.

James

Last edited by jamtat (2009-04-08 01:24:19)

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