power went out during pacman -Syu now pc won't boot .

OperativePavian · 2025-10-07 04:42:21

i'm fairly new to arch . at one point the power went out after i initiated a Pacman -Syu .now i cant boot the pc because it said :
Loading Linux linux
error: file '/boot/vmlinuz-linux' not found.
Loading inital ramdisk ...
error: you need to load the kernel first.

Press any key to continue.

i decided to fix it with the posts form here after punching (error: file '/boot/vmlinuz-linux' not found.) this line into google i think i did a bad job while i was thinking oh it has to be an easy fix not like i'm the only one who ever had power go out while upgrades where happening

what i ended up doing is i booted in from my installation medium . i chroot -ed into my /mnt and i just ran pacman -S linux , it told me that i have to remove the pacman lock file , i did ,then i attempted to complete pacman -Syu, notthing but errors .so linux got installed by pacman but nothing else worked
after trying to boot
Loading Linux linux
(error: file '/boot/vmlinuz-linux' not found.) this line disappeared from the error
Loading inital ramdisk ...
error: you need to load the kernel first.

and now after waiting a bit on the error message it even shows a blue kernel panic screen with a qr code .
and now i think i'm officially out of my depth so i came here to ask for help.

OperativePavian · 2025-10-07 04:43:25

this is the qr code link not sure if i should be sharing this but here it is if it helps
https://panic.archlinux.org/panic_repor … 4172764806

seth · 2025-10-07 08:07:56

For reference: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman … an_upgrade

[    4.297259] /dev/root: Can't open blockdev
[    4.297278] VFS: Cannot open root device "UUID=cbce7536-fb80-4820-843f-22026487e747" or unknown-block(0,0): error -6
[    4.297280] Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
[    4.297283] 0800      3907018584 sda 
[    4.297286]  driver: sd
[    4.297288]   0801       667965440 sda1 6d4e8ba1-08ed-4bcb-b252-6d993b12aa8f
[    4.297290] 
[    4.297291]   0803         1048576 sda3 32e2b8e6-c974-4f76-902c-3b5e95c81360
[    4.297292] 
[    4.297293]   0804        16777216 sda4 60d74b36-ed4a-48f5-a69d-ccdf8c814c6f
[    4.297294] 
[    4.297295]   080d      3221225472 sda13 5718fbe5-04e9-4871-924b-63a386eed67e
[    4.297296] 
[    4.297298] 0810      3907018584 sdb 
[    4.297298]  driver: sd
[    4.297299]   0811       685791232 sdb1 ea376bfb-7889-407c-bb43-9fb084cdbb4c
[    4.297300] 
[    4.297301]   081d      3221225472 sdb13 17382bbd-5eee-4e2c-9932-1f976e2b90a9
[    4.297302] 
[    4.297303] List of all bdev filesystems:
[    4.297303]  ext3
[    4.297304]  ext2
[    4.297304]  ext4
[    4.297305]  fuseblk
[    4.297305]  btrfs

Ie. the "root=UUID=cbce7536-fb80-4820-843f-22026487e747" line in your bootloader config is wrong.

i attempted to complete pacman -Syu, notthing but errors

From the install iso:

LC_ALL=C pacman --root=/mnt  -Qkk |& grep -v ', 0 altered files' | grep -v backup > /tmp/howbadisit.txt
cat /tmp/howbadisit.txt | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

and post the link you get.

OperativePavian · 2025-10-08 07:12:11

https://0x0.st/HvXr.txt

i feel like this is not what i was supposed to get .yet here i am

(i would like to quietly add that while saving the OS would be awesome my personal stuff is saved in GitHub and at most i would lose my installed software which i would have to reinstall )

i have edited it my bad .

i missed the v for an u

Last edited by OperativePavian (2025-10-09 07:04:32)

seth · 2025-10-08 08:21:28

That url is effectively 404 and typically (happens to more people ) a misinterpretation of the url (from the console font, also they're case sensitive) or bogus autocorrection by your phone - but it's not https://0x0.st/Huxr.txt either.
Try again, in doubt make a photo of the url and post that

OperativePavian · 2025-10-17 14:13:01

hiyyya i edited my reply not long after you pointed it out .had to visit my grandma and now i'm here to work on this again .

seth · 2025-10-17 14:16:04

error: failed to initialize alpm library:
(root: /mnt, dbpath: /mnt/var/lib/pacman/)
could not find or read directory

either the root partition of the installed system wasn't mounted into /mnt or you're using a dedicated /var partition you'd also need to mount - or the installation is really badly broken.

eatthemeek · 2025-10-17 15:34:41

Is /boot on its own patition? Could vmlinuz/initramfs-linux be corrupted or missing? The command mkinitcpio -P may help if your kernel is installed and your properly chroot in.

Last edited by eatthemeek (2025-10-17 15:36:28)

Arch Linux

#1 2025-10-07 04:42:21

power went out during pacman -Syu now pc won't boot .

#2 2025-10-07 04:43:25

Re: power went out during pacman -Syu now pc won't boot .

#3 2025-10-07 08:07:56

Re: power went out during pacman -Syu now pc won't boot .

#4 2025-10-08 07:12:11

Re: power went out during pacman -Syu now pc won't boot .

#5 2025-10-08 08:21:28

Re: power went out during pacman -Syu now pc won't boot .

#6 2025-10-17 14:13:01

Re: power went out during pacman -Syu now pc won't boot .

#7 2025-10-17 14:16:04

Re: power went out during pacman -Syu now pc won't boot .

#8 2025-10-17 15:34:41

Re: power went out during pacman -Syu now pc won't boot .

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