Arch Linux

kinghajj

Member

Registered: 2008-07-15

Posts: 35

[SOLVED] Hosed my box while upgrading to Ext4, can't boot anymore

I've been using Ext4 since it became stable, but did so simply by changing "ext3" to "ext4" in /etc/fstab, thinking that was enough. Last weekend, however, I browsed around and found that, in fact, some more steps are required to more completely convert an Ext3 filesystem into Ext4, so that it can get even more improvements while sacrificing backwards-compatibility.

Never one to fear an upgrade, I promptly followed the instructions for my backup drive (/dev/sdb1), saw everything worked, and then upgraded my home (/dev/sda4), root (/dev/sda3), and boot (/dev/sda1) partitions using an Ubuntu 10.04 Live CD. I reboot, and GRUB drops me down into its shell, rather than the menu I've seen for the past couple years. Damn. (Lucky I had a spare hard drive and that Ubuntu 10.04 installation disk, so that I could have something to use to repair my Arch install.)

I've since learned that GRUB doesn't support Ext4, so I thought, "Hey, I'll just back up the partition, format it as Ext3, copy the files back and everything should work!" No dice, unfortunately; GRUB still just drops me down into the shell.

I've tried reinstalling GRUB and rechecking it (grub-install /dev/sda, etc.), but I still can't get this to boot. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I might go about fixing this problem? Thanks!

EDIT:

I've solved this myself. I ran

grub-install /dev/sda

again, and when I rebooted I got the normal grub menu. I still couldn't boot with the default kernel, but luckily the fallback image worked. I used that to fsck the filesystems and change UUIDs in /etc/fstab to get everything straight, and now everything's working as it should.

Last edited by kinghajj (2010-05-27 08:36:19)

JohnVV

Member

From: Ann Arbor, Mi. U.S.A.

Registered: 2009-09-30

Posts: 107

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Hosed my box while upgrading to Ext4, can't boot anymore

other than using the current gparted cd and reformatting /boot ( that approx 100 meg to 300 meg  partition ) back to ext3 and using the arch cd to reinstall grub

the current gparted live cd is a life saver at times ( so is knoppix live )

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ataraxia

Member

From: Pittsburgh

Registered: 2007-05-06

Posts: 1,553

Re: [SOLVED] Hosed my box while upgrading to Ext4, can't boot anymore

Arch's GRUB actually does support ext4. I've been using it that way for a long time now.

Inxsible

Forum Fellow

From: Chicago

Registered: 2008-06-09

Posts: 9,183

Re: [SOLVED] Hosed my box while upgrading to Ext4, can't boot anymore

Grub2 has support for ext4. Having said that, the Arch devs have patched grub to support ext4 as well. So I don't think its the grub that is at fault.

Recently installed Arch on a new desktop and used ext4 for / and /home and reiserfs for /var. Also been using ext4 on my older laptop since a long long time.

Have you by any chance forgotten to change the fstab mount option entries? That would probably screw up the whole booting of the OS. Use your live CD and make the necessary changes to fstab, putting in ext4 as the filesystem for the /boot, / and /home or whichever partitions you changed to ext4.

Last edited by Inxsible (2010-05-27 05:41:25)

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