Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory

NaNaN · 2022-05-13 14:43:11

I am trying to do an offline install of Arch but can no longer copy the filesystem to the hard drive.

mount /dev/sda3 /mnt (mounts fine)

cp -ax / /mnt (fails)
Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory

Versions prior would copy fine but it fails now.

Any idea what is wrong here?

tucuxi · 2022-05-13 15:30:26

What are you trying to accomplish with the cp command? In particular, what do you expect from the -x flag?

NaNaN · 2022-05-13 15:33:30

The "x" flag instructs cp to stay on this filesystem. The flags were taken directly from the documentation.

Please have a look here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Offlin … opy_Method

Last edited by NaNaN (2022-05-13 15:35:48)

tucuxi · 2022-05-13 16:46:49

So, you want to copy the contents of the iso to a file system on your drive. A little context helps.

What commands preceded the mount command?

And:

blkid

lsblk

stat /mnt

NaNaN · 2022-05-13 16:49:43

Tucuxi, the command prior to 'cp' was newfs. This was supposed to be a fresh install.

newfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
mount...

File: /mnt
Size: 4096 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 directory
Device: 8,3 Inode: 2 Links: 3
Access: (0755/drwxr-xr-x) Uid: ( 0/ root) Gid: ( 0/ root)
Access: 2022-05-13 09:38:26.000000000 +0000
Modify: 2022-05-13 09:38:26.000000000 +0000
Change: 2022-05-13 09:38:26.000000000 +0000
Birth: 2022-05-13 09:38:26.000000000 +0000
/dev/sdb2: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL_FATBOOT="ARCHISO_EFI" LABEL="ARCHISO_EFI" UUID="0546-6611" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="bff8ee56-02"
/dev/sdb1: BLOCK_SIZE="2048" UUID="2022-05-01-09-16-25-00" LABEL="ARCH_202205" TYPE="iso9660" PARTUUID="bff8ee56-01"
/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/sda2: UUID="5d486167-fb14-4582-9724-55f60a034f87" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="7c460021-2e2b-3f47-ac73-6823acace1a8"
/dev/sda3: UUID="e3bdc423-59a3-4f31-aa22-0876c6c5d907" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="f509041e-49fe-7044-9b29-3bf3cf9ce4cc"
/dev/sda1: UUID="4CA0-3491" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="0e04b5f8-564d-6945-9d04-170aa5087489"
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
loop0 7:0 0 669.2M 1 loop /run/archiso/airootfs
sda 8:0 0 298.1G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 128M 0 part
├─sda2 8:2 0 32G 0 part
└─sda3 8:3 0 266G 0 part /mnt
sdb 8:16 1 14.5G 0 disk /run/archiso/bootmnt
├─sdb1 8:17 1 748M 0 part
└─sdb2 8:18 1 78M 0 part
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom

Last edited by NaNaN (2022-05-13 16:58:09)

Roken · 2022-05-13 19:14:08

And what exactly are you trying to install. As far as I know, newfs is not available in Arch.

tucuxi · 2022-05-13 19:18:18

That looks reasonable. Try the cp command with -v, perhaps it gives a clue what goes wrong.

NaNaN · 2022-05-16 11:09:54

Tucuxi, I tried with the -v flag and I get the same message: "Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory"

I'm at a loss here. Does anyone know what's happening with this?

tucuxi · 2022-05-16 17:55:09

Let's see if we can get any hints from findmnt.

findmnt --real

NaNaN · 2022-05-17 11:42:33

Tucuxi, here is the output of fndmnt:

TARGET SOURCE FSTYPE OPTIONS
/run/archiso/bootmnt /dev/sdb1 iso9660 ro,relatime,nojoliet,check=s,map=n,blocksize=2048,iocharset=utf8
/run/archiso/airootfs /dev/loop0 squashfs ro,relatime,errors=continue

sdb1 is the USB stick with arch on it.

tucuxi · 2022-05-17 16:07:14

The output shows that /dev/sda3 is not mounted. That explains the error message from the cp command. Try

mkdir -p /mnt
mount -v /dev/sda3 /mnt

And check the output of dmesg for any hints if mount fails.

NaNaN · 2022-05-18 11:44:26

Tucuxi, You were right, sda3 wasn't mounted at the time I ran the findmnt command. I mounted sda3 using the -v flag and no errors were thrown.

For clarity, I am not having an issue mounting the partition, I am having an issue with the copy command.

Even after sda3 is mounted, the copy operation still fails with "Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory."

Here is the output of findmnt with sda3 mounted:

TARGET SOURCE FSTYPE OPTIONS
/run/archiso/bootmnt /dev/sdb1 iso9660 ro,relatime,nojoliet,check=s,map=n,blocksize=2048,iocharset=utf8
/run/archiso/airootfs /dev/loop0 squashfs ro,relatime,errors=continue
/mnt /dev/sda3 ext4 rw,relatime

Then, after a successful mount, I copy:

cp -ax / /mnt
Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory.

Fixxer · 2022-05-18 12:08:03

It starts copying when used:

cp -v -a -x /* /mnt

Consider to use rsync instead.

NaNaN · 2022-05-18 12:24:13

Fixxer, thanks for the reply.

I am aware that using a wildcard will copy but when you drop the -v flag, you'll see there are IO errors and an Invalid argument that occur. Also, I started this copy operation literally 10 minutes ago and it's still copying.

Using cp -ax / /mnt, would copy in less than a minute. Something isn't right here.

Arch Linux

#1 2022-05-13 14:43:11

Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory

#2 2022-05-13 15:30:26

Re: Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory

#3 2022-05-13 15:33:30

Re: Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory

#4 2022-05-13 16:46:49

Re: Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory

#5 2022-05-13 16:49:43

Re: Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory

#6 2022-05-13 19:14:08

Re: Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory

#7 2022-05-13 19:18:18

Re: Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory

#8 2022-05-16 11:09:54

Re: Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory

#9 2022-05-16 17:55:09

Re: Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory

#10 2022-05-17 11:42:33

Re: Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory

#11 2022-05-17 16:07:14

Re: Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory

#12 2022-05-18 11:44:26

Re: Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory

#13 2022-05-18 12:08:03

Re: Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory

#14 2022-05-18 12:24:13

Re: Cannot create directory /mnt no such file or directory

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