Arch Linux

sydneymoargan

Member

Registered: 2020-11-23

Posts: 9

Mount failure for efi system partition (esp) during boot

Hello People,

I am at installation, having a problem concerning the boot of esp /boot/esp /dev/sda1.

I have installed syslinux via:

"efibootmgr --create  --disk /dev/sda --part 1 -- loader /EFI syslinux.efi --label "Syslinux" --verbose"

my tree is:

"/boot/esp/EFI/syslinux"

During loading it says:
when initializing:

"Finished File System Check on /dev/disk/by-uuid/<uuid>
   Mounting /boot/esp...
[FAILED] Failed to mount /boot/esp"

Here from fdisk -l:

"Disk /dev/sda: 465.76 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: A SSD
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: ECD3F662-B4ED-F546-BF05-496C08FC84D4

Device         Start       End  Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1       2048   1255423  1253376   612M EFI System
/dev/sda2    1255424  22226943 20971520    10G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda3   22226944  38569703 16342760   7.8G Linux swap
/dev/sda4   39004160  89335807 50331648    24G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda5   89335808 156444671 67108864 "   32G Linux filesystem

here is the /etc/fstab:

"# /dev/sda4 LABEL=root
UUID=1ba235e6-8g4f-41ee-979u-4690cf273mdf    /             ext4          rw,relatime    0 1

# /dev/sda1
UUID=2939-FR76          /esp          vfat          rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro    0 2"

and the syslinux.cfg:

"UI menu.c32
DEFAULT Arch
#PROMPT
MENU TITLE Boot Menu
MENU BACKGROUND a.png
TIMEOUT 6

LABEL Arch
    LINUX    /vmlinuz-linux
    INITRD    /initramfs-linux.img
    APPEND    root=UUID=1ba535e6-8g4f-41ee-979u-4690cf273mdf rw
LABEL Arch Fallback
    LINUX    /vmlinuz-linux
    INITRD    /initramfs-linux-fallback.img
    APPEND    root=UUID=1ba535e6-8g4f-41ee-979u-4690cf273mdf rw"

Do I need to install swap? I have not now, to do it later when the boot works.

Thank you for your help.

To add, I had the same problem with systemd. And then tryed it with syslinux, but same. My thought was that I can possible boot the modules and the kernel from another partition seated at the and of my gpt. But that did not worked for me, for not knowing how to link everything together. Maybe someone has an idea.

Last edited by sydneymoargan (2021-03-22 18:44:01)

tucuxi

Member

From: Switzerland

Registered: 2020-03-08

Posts: 291

Re: Mount failure for efi system partition (esp) during boot

What happens when you mount sda1 on /boot/esp instead of /esp?

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 12,431

Re: Mount failure for efi system partition (esp) during boot

It looks to me like you're booting an old kernel. Look at what's on the ESP, I would bet you copied a kernel and initramfs there, then an update put the new kernel/initramfs in /boot on the root partition. You would be loading an old kernel that doesn't have modules in the filesystem, so it can't load the vfat driver.

sydneymoargan

Member

Registered: 2020-11-23

Posts: 9

Re: Mount failure for efi system partition (esp) during boot

What happens when you mount sda1 on /boot/esp instead of /esp?

Thank you for replay, I made a mistake in writting what happend at install journal, it is now corrected from /esp to /boot/esp, so this is right now.
I will try now to fix it, but have not so much hope..

sydneymoargan

Member

Registered: 2020-11-23

Posts: 9

Re: Mount failure for efi system partition (esp) during boot

It looks to me like you're booting an old kernel. Look at what's on the ESP, I would bet you copied a kernel and initramfs there, then an update put the new kernel/initramfs in /boot on the root partition. You would be loading an old kernel that doesn't have modules in the filesystem, so it can't load the vfat driver.

I have seen an old kernel 5.8.7.. yes but it was a freezed login so I restarted and back with arch-chroot changed something so that it was not their again.

sydneymoargan

Member

Registered: 2020-11-23

Posts: 9

Re: Mount failure for efi system partition (esp) during boot

It looks to me like you're booting an old kernel. Look at what's on the ESP, I would bet you copied a kernel and initramfs there, then an update put the new kernel/initramfs in /boot on the root partition. You would be loading an old kernel that doesn't have modules in the filesystem, so it can't load the vfat driver.

I have seen an old kernel 5.8.7.. yes but it was a freezed login so I restarted and back with arch-chroot changed something so that it was not their again.

I have now unchecked with "#" in /etc/fstab the /boot ( changed it from /boot/esp to /boot).
And now I see an 5.8.7 kernel!! what is here going wrong? But I can not tipe anything

Last edited by sydneymoargan (2021-03-22 19:04:46)

sydneymoargan

Member

Registered: 2020-11-23

Posts: 9

Re: Mount failure for efi system partition (esp) during boot

Now I have deleted the boot and reinstalled syslinux, with now hanging on that with: "mkinitcpio -p linux" and through pacman system update I can not generat my initramfs.
It says: "ERROR: Unable to write to path: `/initramfs-linux.img'
Any idea?

Last edited by sydneymoargan (2021-03-22 19:59:00)