Failed to mount /boot

pmcode · 2015-12-20 19:55:25

Hi guys, fairly inexperienced arch user here with a plea for help.

Recently borked my computer by installing skype and relevant video drivers, which prevented me from booting to desktop for ~a month while i finished the academic semester. I was finally able to sink some time into fixing the issue and think I solved THAT one, but then there was that HUGE (systemd?) update and I think it may have broke my build.

I have a single hard drive in UEFI mode with multiple partitions. lsblk from an Arch Live CD gives

sda1 450M (the efi partition?)
sda2 100M (/boot)
sda3 16M (system reserved for)
sda4 466G (Windows 10)
sda5 977M (swap)
sda6 231.1G (arch)
sda7 232.1G (ntfs shared storage)

When I try to start Arch, it (systemd?)says it failed to mount /boot. My fstab contains

#/dev/sda6
UUID=7d993955-23a7-4b8d-98b3-4a516690fda9 / ext4 rw, relatime, data = ordered 0 1
#/dev/sda2
UUID=5A1C-233C /boot vfat rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=00022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro 0 2
#/dev/sda7
UUID=6B8FEB9E05EF9438 /media/shared ntfs-3g noauto 0 2

The shared media paritition is set to noauto right now because it was also giving me problems mounting. That's an issue for another time.

My arch file system's /boot contains
root@archiso /boot # ls
grub memtest86+ syslinux

But /dev/sda2 has

root@archiso ~/tmpboot # ls
arch EFI initramfs-linux-fallback.img initramfs-linux.img initramfs-linux-lts-fallback.img initramfs-linux-lts.img loader vmlinuz-linux vmlinuz-linux-lts

Which makes it seem like /dev/sda2 has not been properly mounted at /boot, or one of them didn't update properly, or...something? I saw a lot of people on different forums talking about copying newly updated kernels to their /boot/efi locations manually after updating, and I **haven't** done that, because I don't want to break anything more than it's alrady broken. If anyone can walk me through doing that I'd be more than happpy to give it a try.

Does anyone have any advice, ideas, solutions? Would any additional output or information help? I'm at a total loss.

Last edited by pmcode (2015-12-20 20:15:58)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-12-20 20:23:41

Can we see the output of:

# gdisk -l /dev/sda

This will show for sure where the EFI system partition is.

A pastebin client can generate a URL that you can post here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?ti … in_clients

BTW:

there was that HUGE (systemd?) update

How long since you last updated your system?

EDIT: Do the UUIDs in /etc/fstab match the output of `blkid`?

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2015-12-20 20:24:32)

tom.ty89 · 2015-12-20 20:25:06

Can you paste the output `lsblk -f`? Also `tree` or `ls -AlR` ~/tmpboot.

pmcode · 2015-12-20 22:11:25

Hello! Thanks for the speedy responses.

Head-On-a-Stick wrote:

How long since you last updated your system?

I last updated probably a month before this. The update seemed really large but the installed size was much smaller, I think?

Output of

#gdisk -l /dev/sda

Is (abbreviated because I can't copy/paste)

    
Number    Start (sector)       End (sector)         Size                Code          Name
1               2048                    923647       450MB            2700          Basic data partition
2               923648                1128447        100MB            EF00          EFI system partition

etc etc With a Microsoft reserved next, Basic data partition follow, an unlabeled swap, the linux partition, and a labeled storage swap.

As I read through this forum post I realized I could probably just copy-paste my new kernels into my efi and have it work correctly.

I tried to do so but was told the partition was out of space, and

 du -sch

indicated that I had 96MB of 100MB in the ESP used.

So I'm in Gparted right now moving the Windows partition over so I can resize the ESP to be 500 MB rather than 100. 500 might be excessive, but I don't need to run into this problem again

EDITS: Terrible formatting. Still bad but now readable.

Last edited by pmcode (2015-12-20 22:18:20)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-12-20 22:28:24

pmcode wrote:

I realized I could probably just copy-paste my new kernels into my efi and have it work correctly

For now yes but you need to make sure the correct partition is mounted to /boot so this doesn't happen again.

Once the mounting is correct, simply re-installing the linux package and re-installing & re-configuring your boot{loader,manager} will put the correct files in place.

pmcode · 2015-12-21 00:07:13

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

make sure the correct partition is mounted to /boot

fstab attemps to mount the device with a UUID that matches the UUID of /dev/sda2, which GParted shows is flagged as boot, esp. Is that sufficient?
If the web browser in Gparted was working or if I could copy/paste between my desktop and here I would give you the output again, but as it is I'm too lazy to write it by hand.

The GParted operation finally finished, and I now have 402MB of unallocated space before my windows partition. so

lsblk -f

gives

sda1   ntfs     recovery   5E8A......      no mountpoint (in GParted right now)
sda2   vfat     no label   5A1C-233C        no mountpoint 
sda3   none     no label    none             no mountpoint (this is Microsoft's reserved partition, more on this in a sec)
sda4   ntfs     no label    5C4A25...       no mountpoint
 
etc etc

But it now appears that I still can't move the Microsoft Reserved Partition...Do I need to make a new EFI partition in the new 400MB space, re-install my boot{loader,manager}, and then delete the old EFI partition? Is it okay to have my EFI partition after Microsoft's reserved partition, or will that mess up one of the boot{loader,manager}s?

Last edited by pmcode (2015-12-21 00:10:08)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-12-21 00:13:57

*Do not* delete the old ESP, the Windows bootloader is there.

Windows is using UEFI, right?

pmcode · 2015-12-21 00:36:19

Ah, of course. Yes, it is.

pmcode · 2015-12-21 00:47:20

This forum post gives me an idea: use "dd" to copy the Microsoft Reserved Partition to a flash drive or other disk, change the size of the EFI, move the Microsoft Reserved Partition back over when I'm done. Thoughts?

Last edited by pmcode (2015-12-21 00:47:49)

tom.ty89 · 2015-12-21 01:30:06

Forget about the parted tags, they are silly, and they won't prevent you from mounting anyway.

If you are sure the UUID is correct then check journal to see if it gives you a reason. You can also try `mount UUID=B06C-A589 /boot` manually to test (optionally with the bunch of options in the fstab which is probably implied by "defaults").

AFAIK Microsoft Reserved Partition is safe to delete (and simply recreate, no dd needed), since it's mostly unused, and if one has to be exist it should be after the ESP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft … _Partition

If you have extra space available for a new ESP you can have one. There is the bcdboot.exe in Windows to install its bootloader to a new ESP, just that you need to have normal FAT partition type first for drive letter assignment and (optionally) change it back to "EFI System" later.

Last edited by tom.ty89 (2015-12-21 01:31:29)

pmcode · 2015-12-21 03:16:18

Got everything rolling again! I ended up trying and failing to resize the /efi partition, apparently Gparted doesn't play well with it, deleted a bunch of old kernels, manually copied over the new ones, and tinkered with nividia drivers for another hour before it all came together. Thank you so much for all of your help!

tom.ty89 · 2015-12-21 03:17:59

Oh right. We forgot the module/kernel mismatch issue. Probably it was vfat.ko not loading...

Arch Linux

#1 2015-12-20 19:55:25

Failed to mount /boot

#2 2015-12-20 20:23:41

Re: Failed to mount /boot

#3 2015-12-20 20:25:06

Re: Failed to mount /boot

#4 2015-12-20 22:11:25

Re: Failed to mount /boot

#5 2015-12-20 22:28:24

Re: Failed to mount /boot

#6 2015-12-21 00:07:13

Re: Failed to mount /boot

#7 2015-12-21 00:13:57

Re: Failed to mount /boot

#8 2015-12-21 00:36:19

Re: Failed to mount /boot

#9 2015-12-21 00:47:20

Re: Failed to mount /boot

#10 2015-12-21 01:30:06

Re: Failed to mount /boot

#11 2015-12-21 03:16:18

Re: Failed to mount /boot

#12 2015-12-21 03:17:59

Re: Failed to mount /boot

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