Stuck after install and reboot at "Assuming drive cache: write through

someguy · 2017-02-11 01:58:55

Hey guys,

I wanted to install both Windows and Arch Linux on my new SSD and after I installed Windows 10 on it, created some unpartitioned volume large enough for linux, I followed the guides like I did years ago the first time on my laptop, but now for my PC. As for the installation media I used a 64GB USB drive which I formatted with the ISO using Rufus with default settings in Windows 10.

So what I did was follow this guide at first. Until it said that for UEFI I should switch to this article, since my PC system is UEFI compatible and I also installed Windows 10 in UEFI mode. As the article says, after mounting the partitions I switch back to the original guide until I set up the root password and then back again until the end.

Few notes:

I used the EFI partition Windows 10 created. So when it says
```
mkfs.fat -F 32 -n EFIBOOT /dev/sdaX
```
I typed in the partition which Windows created and already existed
As for the boot loader I chose GRUB
Since I use a SSD I also changed the parameters as told in the guide.

So after exiting the chroot-environment and rebooting my system boots up and I choose Arch (Windows is not shown) and get this:

 Arch Linux 4.9.8-1-ARCH (tty1)

localhost login: [       3.413229] sd 7:0:0:2: [sdg] No Caching mode page found
[      3.413233] sd 7:0:0:2: [sdg] Assuming drive cache: write through
[      3.413806] sd 7:0:0:2: [sdi] No Caching mode page found
[      3.413233] sd 7:0:0:2: [sdi] Assuming drive cache: write through

This is where it gets stuck or in other words I just see a blinking cursor. When I type exit it asks for a password but the root password I typed in during the set up won't get accepted but it also asks for "localhost login" and not my given hostname.

And no I did not verify unfortunately. After googling and searching I wanted to try the "dd" method in Windows so I formatted my USB drive a few times and cannot tell if it was formatted correctly the first time or not anymore. But since I got this far and through almost the whole setup, I doubt the image file was corrupt but then again, I don't know for sure.

Last edited by someguy (2017-02-11 02:24:09)

Trilby · 2017-02-11 02:44:09

Windows is no longer a boot option as you wiped all of it's files from the EFI partition when you recreated the filesystem. You should not have run mkfs on the EFI partition.

Those messages on the login screen look like just messages. It is still waiting for a user name and password. You claim you typed "exit" then it asked for a password, but the root password did not work - that's because you didn't try to log in as "root" you tried to log in as "exit" and there is no such user.

Enter username "root" and then the password. Switch to TTY2 if you want a clean log in screen - but it will work the same.

someguy · 2017-02-11 12:17:42

Thank you for your reply.

Okay I thought that mkfs will rewrite the partition with entries for both Windows and Linux now, well..

I pressed enter after these messages and logged in with root successfully. Then after going further with the guide and installing some services as well as nvidia drivers and setting the time (although it always got me the wrong time by 1 hour although I set up all 4 de.ntp.pool.org servers) and finally gnome, I rebooted. But now after choosing Arch some messages appear and I get a big white screen with a sad face saying "Unfortunately a problem occured" "which cannot be solved by the system. Please log out and try again" with a button "Log out". After clicking this button some messages appear and again the white screen sad face pops up.

The appearing messages in between are:

starting version 232
[       2.669630] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] No caching mode page found
p_arch: recovering journal
p_arch: clean, 186122/1966080 files, 1450169/7864320 blocks

Trilby · 2017-02-11 13:14:40

Those messages are (mosty) benign - they are to be expected with flash drives under many conditions. But in your first post the message was for sdg and sdi, and the new one for sdd. Drives may be enumerated differently on each boot, but it still looks like there are a *lot* of disks connected. Is this true? How many drives (HDD, SDD, flash drives, flash cards, etc) do you have connected?

As for your gnome error, you should probably open a new thread for that and post some logs. If you are running gnome on Xorg, you should post the xorg logs. You should also test a minimal Xorg session with startx to see if this is a gnome specific issue or a general Xorg config problem.

someguy · 2017-02-11 13:23:38

I have 2 additional and internal hard drives along the SSD and another one externally connected via USB. And 2 memory cards.

As for the GNOME problem, it seems like I cannot even do anything anymore. So the only thing I could do would be booting a live system again and checking... I might try and reinstall Win10 and Arch again so that I won't do the EFI error again. If I got you right, I shouldn't have done the mkfs command for the EFI partition and only for the root and swap partition, right? So just leave it alone and mount it in the next steps and that's it?

Trilby · 2017-02-11 13:28:46

There is no need to reinstall arch. You have a complete install. You do need to fix the windows efi content - I have no idea how to do that, that's a windows issue.

I don't know what you mean saying you can't do anything anymore. Switch to a different tty and log in - disable gdm from there if you'd like.

someguy · 2017-02-11 13:30:53

Okay then I will try to look into that after fixing the Gnome issue.

Because after choosing Arch I end up with this sad face screen and can only click the button, messages appear, and the button again. I cannot type anything since there is no prompt coming up.

Trilby · 2017-02-11 13:37:51

Trilby wrote:

Switch to a different tty and log in - disable gdm from there if you'd like.

Ctrl-Alt-F2 or Ctrl-Alt-F3 ...

Arch Linux

#1 2017-02-11 01:58:55

Stuck after install and reboot at "Assuming drive cache: write through

#2 2017-02-11 02:44:09

Re: Stuck after install and reboot at "Assuming drive cache: write through

#3 2017-02-11 12:17:42

Re: Stuck after install and reboot at "Assuming drive cache: write through

#4 2017-02-11 13:14:40

Re: Stuck after install and reboot at "Assuming drive cache: write through

#5 2017-02-11 13:23:38

Re: Stuck after install and reboot at "Assuming drive cache: write through

#6 2017-02-11 13:28:46

Re: Stuck after install and reboot at "Assuming drive cache: write through

#7 2017-02-11 13:30:53

Re: Stuck after install and reboot at "Assuming drive cache: write through

#8 2017-02-11 13:37:51

Re: Stuck after install and reboot at "Assuming drive cache: write through

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