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#1 2013-05-19 17:04:25

ibrunton
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2011-05-05
Posts: 270

cannot boot, /boot is empty [updated with more info]

I'm not sure this is related to pacman, but I'm not sure where else it would go either.

Yesterday I upgraded a bunch of packages, including the kernel, pacman, and systemd.  I shut down the computer overnight.  Today it will not boot.  I get this:

Booting the kernel.
[ 0.000000] tsc: Fast TSC calibration failed
:: running early hook [udev]
:: running hook [udev]
:: Triggering uevents...
:: running hook [consolefont]
:: Loading console font...done
:: performing fsck on '/dev/disk/by-uuid/...'
/dev/sda3 has been mounted 21 times without being checked, check forced.
/dev/sda3: (snipped)
:: mounting /dev/disk/by-uuid/... on real root
:: running cleanup hook [udev]
ERROR: Root device mounted successfully but /bin/systemd does not exist.
Bailing out, you are on your own. Good luck.

sh: can't access tty: job control turned off.
[rootfs /]#

My /home is on a separate partition and seems to be fine.  Most of the root partition seems to be okay, but /boot is totally empty. I can't find anything in /var/log recent enough.

Any ideas?

Last edited by ibrunton (2013-05-19 17:58:32)

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#2 2013-05-19 18:42:19

shulamy
Member
From: israel
Registered: 2010-09-11
Posts: 453

Re: cannot boot, /boot is empty [updated with more info]

you should migrate to systemd long ago.

maybe the wiki can help you.

ezik

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#3 2013-05-19 18:44:59

ibrunton
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2011-05-05
Posts: 270

Re: cannot boot, /boot is empty [updated with more info]

shulamy wrote:

you should migrate to systemd long ago.

maybe the wiki can help you.

ezik

I migrated to systemd ages ago.  That's why it's peculiar that /bin/systemd doesn't exist.

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#4 2013-05-19 18:55:44

jasonwryan
Anarchist
From: .nz
Registered: 2009-05-09
Posts: 30,424
Website

Re: cannot boot, /boot is empty [updated with more info]

You should read pacman's output when upgrading:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=163243


Arch + dwm   •   Mercurial repos  •   Surfraw

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#5 2013-05-19 18:58:57

shulamy
Member
From: israel
Registered: 2010-09-11
Posts: 453

Re: cannot boot, /boot is empty [updated with more info]

i don't have /bin/systemd just like you without any problem.

maybe somthing happened to the disk by fsck or before.

is  /boot a separate partition?,

because in my red-hat days i hade separate partition

that mixed with a directory boot in partition /.

ezik

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#6 2013-05-19 19:11:54

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: cannot boot, /boot is empty [updated with more info]

This has really been discussed to death since the change was made.  Please do some searching before posting.  Basically, if /sbin/systemd doesn't exist, then poitning init= to that is not the greatest idea.  So unless you have the systemd-sysvcompat package, your system will now try and boot the old /sbin/init of sysvinit that you never fully replaced.

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#7 2013-05-19 20:05:45

ibrunton
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2011-05-05
Posts: 270

Re: cannot boot, /boot is empty [updated with more info]

WonderWoofy wrote:

This has really been discussed to death since the change was made.  Please do some searching before posting.  Basically, if /sbin/systemd doesn't exist, then poitning init= to that is not the greatest idea.  So unless you have the systemd-sysvcompat package, your system will now try and boot the old /sbin/init of sysvinit that you never fully replaced.

I have systemd-sysvcompat. Am I misunderstanding something, or shouldn't systemd-sysvcompat have prevented whatever my problem is?

Or at least I had systemd-sysvcompat installed.  The entire drive seems to have been overwritten with the ARCH_201305 iso image.  I downloaed that via another distro's liveCD that I had lying around, but I thought I'd written it to my USB drive.  Apparently not?  My oops (either that or a MAJOR bug in dd, which I doubt).  Oh, well, good thing I back up my /home dir regularly, and this gives me an opportunity for a clean, new install.

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#8 2013-05-20 00:13:45

ewaller
Administrator
From: Pasadena, CA
Registered: 2009-07-13
Posts: 19,739

Re: cannot boot, /boot is empty [updated with more info]

In your bootloader, you are probably telling it init=/sbin/systemd on the kernel command line.  Just lose that entire init- clause.  You can edit the line in the boot loader so you can boot.  Then, after you boot, ensure that your boot partition is mounted on /boot. then go edit your bootloader configuration and fix it permanently, like the news on the Arch Linux site and the output of Pacman both indicated.

Edit: Never mind, I saw your last post after posting this.

Last edited by ewaller (2013-05-20 00:14:43)


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#9 2013-05-21 16:02:19

dwarfcadaver
Member
Registered: 2013-04-23
Posts: 2

Re: cannot boot, /boot is empty [updated with more info]

I have this issue as well. I upgraded the first time in about 2 weeks.
on boot, I get past grub and im dumped into a shell as rootfs. /boot is empty and /new_root is read only. Can anyone shed any light on it?
My system is about 2 years old.

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#10 2013-05-21 16:22:05

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: cannot boot, /boot is empty [updated with more info]

dwarfcadaver wrote:

I have this issue as well. I upgraded the first time in about 2 weeks.
on boot, I get past grub and im dumped into a shell as rootfs. /boot is empty and /new_root is read only. Can anyone shed any light on it?
My system is about 2 years old.

I think you have to provide more infomration that what you have provided.  Otherwise it is going to be awfully hard to just guess about what you might have done or any other specification about the state of your system.  In any case, I think this constitutes hijacking a thread because 1) I don't think your problem is the same, and 2) it si not your thread to by bringing your own issue to. 

Of course I hope that you actually read the thread and tried the fix that has been posted throughout here and throughout these forums over and over again.  But the fact remains that the issue the OP had had nothing to do with what he/she orignally thought it was, and turned out to be that he/she dd'ed the ISO onto their rootfs.  I don't think that you did that.

Please start a new thread, and link back to this one if you think it is relevant.  Also, you need to provide more info... real info.  Often times the machine tries to tell the user what is going wrong, and 90% of common computer "users" ignore these warnings and then beg for help.  So what does your computer tell you after being "dumped into a shell"?  What kind of shell is is?

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#11 2013-05-21 19:22:38

skanky
Member
From: WAIS
Registered: 2009-10-23
Posts: 1,847

Re: cannot boot, /boot is empty [updated with more info]

dwarfcadaver wrote:

I have this issue as well. I upgraded the first time in about 2 weeks.
on boot, I get past grub and im dumped into a shell as rootfs. /boot is empty and /new_root is read only. Can anyone shed any light on it?
My system is about 2 years old.

Umount /new_root, then remount it (this will mount it as rw).
Then navigate to /new_root/boot/grub...etc. (I have syslinux so I don't know the details) and edit the loader configuration to include

init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd

Also, a good idea to add it for the fallback image too.

Then reboot.


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