Arch Linux

Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

init exits with "cannot start initial console"

I just repartitioned my master drive, with my slave drive set up as /home... And I cannot get Arch to boot properly. The install went perfectly fine, other than a few bizarre "cannot find /sbin/chroot" messages which did not seem to affect the installation of software. But now, when I boot via GRUB, the kernel loads, and then the boot stops with the message, "Error: cannot start initial console" and my machine reboots! :shock:

Yes, BASH is installed. Yes, I am using uDev. No, I have not done any weird editing of config files.

What the hell is going on?

lanrat

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2003-10-28

Posts: 1,274

Re: init exits with "cannot start initial console"

How did you repartitioned your master drive? Did you do anything to your /dev directory ?

Do you have this line in your /etc/fstab ?

none                    /dev/pts                devpts          defaults                0 0

Do you have /home mounted in fstab too ? ;-)

lanrat

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2003-10-28

Posts: 1,274

Re: init exits with "cannot start initial console"

BTW If you've migrated from devfs to udev you also need to run migrate-udev.

Anyway, one solution for your problem is also described here:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UdevHowTo

Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

Re: init exits with "cannot start initial console"

Thanks.

Last time I installed Arch, you see, the installer must have done this stuff automatically, because I used uDev from the beginning with none of this crap.

Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

Re: init exits with "cannot start initial console"

Hmm... The installer does do it by default - or rather, pacman does it when installing uDev. Why it didn't happen that time is anyone's guess, though my bet's on a bad install floppy.