Freshly installed Arch. "Root device /dev/sda5 doesn't exist"

aardwolf · 2012-03-02 23:42:57

Hi,

I have a new PC. I want multiboot windows and arch on it. I have following partitions on the HD (the windows one is primary, rest is extended):

ntfs, windows
ext4, archlinux, /dev/sda5
swap, /dev/sda6
data: /dev/sda7

I chose to go for old fashioned MBR (I disabled UEFI, AHCI, ...)

During install of arch (most recent download, the 64-bit core image, it is from august 2011), I chose "/" on the ext4 partition and swap on the swap one. I chose grub as boot loader, and enabled the Windows choice too.

After installation, it booted perfectly fine.

Then I did pacman -Syu, followed by pacman -S kde (which installed 2GB of files). This all went fine.

Then I rebooted. This worked.

Then I did pacman -S xorg-server, pacman -S xorg-xinit, and pacman -S nvidia. Then I rebooted again.

However, now booting no longer works:

It says:

Root device '/dev/sda5' doesn't exist. And then drops me in a recovery console.

Why???? Why does it no longer find /dev/sda5??

The hard disk still exists: after all, it loads grub from it, and booting windows still works.

So what other name than /dev/sda5 is linux suddenly looking for?

Also, how can I find out what name the disk now is, because typing text in the recovery console is impossible! Does it not support USB keyboards???

What have I done wrong? This is a fresh install! How can it be messed up already, the arch on my previous PC survived 5 years without failure despite going through so many updates!

Thanks!

Last edited by aardwolf (2012-03-02 23:48:20)

karol · 2012-03-02 23:49:10

Have you tried https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=135288 ?

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 4#p1061064 seems a good step-by-step guide.

Last edited by karol (2012-03-02 23:50:09)

aardwolf · 2012-03-02 23:52:30

How does this happen when Linux boots? Why does it call a disk /dev/sda5, but at a later time decides a /dev/sda5 doesn't exist even though the same disk with the same partitions is in the computer?

jasonwryan · 2012-03-03 00:02:14

After you have chrooted in, please paste your pacman log.

aardwolf · 2012-03-03 10:21:46

I'm posting this from a different PC but one notable thing in the pacman log is already that there seems to be something going with a combination of gzip and mkinitcpio during the nivida upgrade.

Here's parts of that error:

WARNING: could not open /tmp/mkinitcpio.n42gn/root/lib/modules/3.2.8-1-ARCH/modules.builtin: no such file or directory
(...)
Creating gzip initcpio image: /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img

Now it's interesting to note that I saw many errors related to a ZLIB file pass by during the upgrade.

So apparently an nvidia driver installation does stuff to initramfs and stuff. How funny

EDIT:

Apparently it did a kernel upgrade during the nvidia-utils installation: Because it also says: upgraded linux (3.0.3-1 -> 3.2.8-1). So that explains why! But it must be a very broken upgrade, that one, if I'm not the only one who posted this here!!

Last edited by aardwolf (2012-03-03 10:23:13)

aardwolf · 2012-03-03 10:34:02

When doing pacman -Syu now, I constantly have to add -f because files already exist. But this is about very basic ones like locale.(forgot extension), or /etc/mtab. So isn't it logical that these files already exist?

Anyway, I'm just using -f, it's a new installation, no important data to lose yet.

karol · 2012-03-03 10:35:33

aardwolf wrote:

When doing pacman -Syu now, I constantly have to add -f because files already exist. But this is about very basic ones like locale.(forgot extension), or /etc/mtab. So isn't it logical that these files already exist?
Anyway, I'm just using -f, it's a new installation, no important data to lose yet.

Pleeeeease, read the main page news.
I assume you used a core image and not a netinstall one.

meph · 2012-03-03 14:21:06

aardwolf wrote:

When doing pacman -Syu now, I constantly have to add -f because files already exist. But this is about very basic ones like locale.(forgot extension), or /etc/mtab. So isn't it logical that these files already exist?
Anyway, I'm just using -f, it's a new installation, no important data to lose yet.

Doing 'pacman -Syuf' is a guaranteed way to break things, it's just a matter of time.

nomorewindows · 2012-03-03 14:57:05

aardwolf wrote:

How does this happen when Linux boots? Why does it call a disk /dev/sda5, but at a later time decides a /dev/sda5 doesn't exist even though the same disk with the same partitions is in the computer?

/dev/sda5 is passed as arguments to the kernel in grub.
Usually when it can't mount the rootfs, there is a problem with the initramfs image (some modules needed aren't there).

nomorewindows · 2012-03-03 15:25:05

aardwolf wrote:

I'm posting this from a different PC but one notable thing in the pacman log is already that there seems to be something going with a combination of gzip and mkinitcpio during the nivida upgrade.
Here's parts of that error:
WARNING: could not open /tmp/mkinitcpio.n42gn/root/lib/modules/3.2.8-1-ARCH/modules.builtin: no such file or directory
(...)
Creating gzip initcpio image: /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img
Now it's interesting to note that I saw many errors related to a ZLIB file pass by during the upgrade.
So apparently an nvidia driver installation does stuff to initramfs and stuff. How funny

EDIT:
Apparently it did a kernel upgrade during the nvidia-utils installation: Because it also says: upgraded linux (3.0.3-1 -> 3.2.8-1). So that explains why! But it must be a very broken upgrade, that one, if I'm not the only one who posted this here!!

It makes me wonder how you are doing on disk space.

aardwolf · 2012-03-03 18:42:57

I managed to fix it with the steps in the provided links above, thanks!

meph wrote:

aardwolf wrote:
When doing pacman -Syu now, I constantly have to add -f because files already exist. But this is about very basic ones like locale.(forgot extension), or /etc/mtab. So isn't it logical that these files already exist?
Anyway, I'm just using -f, it's a new installation, no important data to lose yet.
Doing 'pacman -Syuf' is a guaranteed way to break things, it's just a matter of time.

I did it anyway, this is really sad, a brand new install and already it is unclean

But what else can one do than adding "f", to get your update? Delete the conflicting files?

nomorewindows wrote:

It makes me wonder how you are doing on disk space.

177GiB free of 195GiB on the Archlinux Partition. Seems fine to me... Especially considering all of KDE4, and Minecraft, are on there too.

Last edited by aardwolf (2012-03-03 18:45:37)

karol · 2012-03-03 18:47:52

aardwolf wrote:

But what else can one do than adding "f", to get your update? Delete the conflicting files?.

You can read the news and the stickies:
* http://www.archlinux.org/news/filesyste … -required/
* http://www.archlinux.org/news/initscrip … -required/
* https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=130138

meph · 2012-03-03 23:05:19

aardwolf wrote:

I did it anyway, this is really sad, a brand new install and already it is unclean
But what else can one do than adding "f", to get your update? Delete the conflicting files?

Exactly what karol suggested. Watch news on archlinux.org, when something important comes up, it's always there. Also, when you already do have a problem, it's always better to check forums first, there's a good chance that someone else already had the same problem and resolved it.

As for the pacman '-f' flag, sometimes it's necessary to do it, as you can see in one of the news karol linked. Never system-wide while doing -Syu though, always package specific. And even then think twice before you do it, or better yet look for a confirmation by someone trustworthy, like an arch developer.

Talking about your new system, how about reinstalling? Lesson learned, so just do it again and better this time Over and over again I had it confirmed by several people as the best course of action, when they made a fatal mistake during installation or right after.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-03-02 23:42:57

Freshly installed Arch. "Root device /dev/sda5 doesn't exist"

#2 2012-03-02 23:49:10

Re: Freshly installed Arch. "Root device /dev/sda5 doesn't exist"

#3 2012-03-02 23:52:30

Re: Freshly installed Arch. "Root device /dev/sda5 doesn't exist"

#4 2012-03-03 00:02:14

Re: Freshly installed Arch. "Root device /dev/sda5 doesn't exist"

#5 2012-03-03 10:21:46

Re: Freshly installed Arch. "Root device /dev/sda5 doesn't exist"

#6 2012-03-03 10:34:02

Re: Freshly installed Arch. "Root device /dev/sda5 doesn't exist"

#7 2012-03-03 10:35:33

Re: Freshly installed Arch. "Root device /dev/sda5 doesn't exist"

#8 2012-03-03 14:21:06

Re: Freshly installed Arch. "Root device /dev/sda5 doesn't exist"

#9 2012-03-03 14:57:05

Re: Freshly installed Arch. "Root device /dev/sda5 doesn't exist"

#10 2012-03-03 15:25:05

Re: Freshly installed Arch. "Root device /dev/sda5 doesn't exist"

#11 2012-03-03 18:42:57

Re: Freshly installed Arch. "Root device /dev/sda5 doesn't exist"

#12 2012-03-03 18:47:52

Re: Freshly installed Arch. "Root device /dev/sda5 doesn't exist"

#13 2012-03-03 23:05:19

Re: Freshly installed Arch. "Root device /dev/sda5 doesn't exist"

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