Persisent USB Stick unable to boot into after Update

rinzler_07 · 2021-11-05 05:51:40

I had a usb stick on which I was running an arch installation with KDE Plasma. It was working fine, until I updated all packages 3 days ago. After the update, it won't boot into the usb stick. During the initial fsck while booting, I get an error saying the device is read only, and can't open. It also says "Failed to start Remount Root and Kernel File Systems". How do I format the disk now ? What should I do? Please help.

Last edited by rinzler_07 (2021-11-05 12:28:17)

rinzler_07 · 2021-11-05 06:05:23

Here is a link to the output upon trying to boot into persistent disk :output

Last edited by rinzler_07 (2021-11-05 06:25:08)

kokoko3k · 2021-11-05 06:39:48

What happens if you try to fsck it from another system?

Last edited by kokoko3k (2021-11-05 06:40:16)

seth · 2021-11-05 07:00:32

Or just write on the stick… chances are that it's toast.

UBS keys and SD cards are *NO* tiny slow SSDs - there's no wear leveling and that can make some cells degrade really fast and then the controller in the USB key will set it read-only to protect the data that's on it.
You can still rescue the data, but the key can no longer be written on.

If you want to run an OS from there, you must avoid writing on the root FS on all costs, either by redirecting frequent IO to some tmpfs mount or w/ a tmpfs overlay FS, only synced on shutdown. Having your $HOME on some NAS. Etcetc.

rinzler_07 · 2021-11-05 12:06:41

kokoko3k wrote:

What happens if you try to fsck it from another system?

Tried it. But, when mounting, it mounts as read only, so no use trying to do any operation other than access the data in it.

rinzler_07 · 2021-11-05 12:11:50

seth wrote:

Or just write on the stick… chances are that it's toast.
UBS keys and SD cards are *NO* tiny slow SSDs - there's no wear leveling and that can make some cells degrade really fast and then the controller in the USB key will set it read-only to protect the data that's on it.
You can still rescue the data, but the key can no longer be written on.
If you want to run an OS from there, you must avoid writing on the root FS on all costs, either by redirecting frequent IO to some tmpfs mount or w/ a tmpfs overlay FS, only synced on shutdown. Having your $HOME on some NAS. Etcetc.

Yeah, I wanted to format it to FAT32 and use it to store stuff.. but it's read only, and so can't really do any other thing than to access data like you said. So you're saying it's worn out? But, it's only been months, and I've used it frequently only these last couple of months. The journaling could've taken its toll on the limited number of read/writes these secondary storage devices have. But, I've used it only for a couple of months now, as a persistent disk, and I bought it fairly recently. Could this be any other issue?

rinzler_07 · 2021-11-05 12:14:05

I used an installation medium, to chroot into the usb, and I logged in as an user on that system. Tried to update all packages, and regenerate the grub file in hopes of making the device work. But, it didn't work. So the USB is toast?

seth · 2021-11-05 12:18:44

Please don't bump. Edit your posts if nobody has replied.
If the stick only mounts ro on various OS it's very safe to say that the controller has locked it.
There're a bunch of device specific (windows) tools around to reset the firmware, but they're typically chinese only and resetting the firmware will help to sell the device as new (grumble…) but not actually fix the broken sectors.

As mentioned: since there's no wear leveling, an individual sector can wear out *really* fast if you absue it as system partition - that includes "couple of months", yes. Sorry.

rinzler_07 · 2021-11-05 12:36:01

seth wrote:

Please don't bump. Edit your posts if nobody has replied.

I'm sorry, I just saw a mistake in the OP, and changed it. Didn't mean to bump. Sorry, didn't know.

seth wrote:

an individual sector can wear out *really* fast if you absue it as system partition - that includes "couple of months", yes. Sorry.

Okay , thanks for the response.

Arch Linux

#1 2021-11-05 05:51:40

Persisent USB Stick unable to boot into after Update

#2 2021-11-05 06:05:23

Re: Persisent USB Stick unable to boot into after Update

#3 2021-11-05 06:39:48

Re: Persisent USB Stick unable to boot into after Update

#4 2021-11-05 07:00:32

Re: Persisent USB Stick unable to boot into after Update

#5 2021-11-05 12:06:41

Re: Persisent USB Stick unable to boot into after Update

#6 2021-11-05 12:11:50

Re: Persisent USB Stick unable to boot into after Update

#7 2021-11-05 12:14:05

Re: Persisent USB Stick unable to boot into after Update

#8 2021-11-05 12:18:44

Re: Persisent USB Stick unable to boot into after Update

#9 2021-11-05 12:36:01

Re: Persisent USB Stick unable to boot into after Update

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