Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

ronandi · 2008-08-23 10:30:21

Ok so I went away for about a month, and when I came back and did pacman -Syu (sooo many updates), and then rebooted, this happened:

:Loading root filesystem module...
Attempting to create root device '/dev/sdb1'
Waiting for devices to settle... done.
ERROR: Failed to parse block device name for '/dev/sdb1'
unknown
ERROR: root fs cannot be detected. Try using the rootfstype= kernel parameter.

Root device '/dev/sdb1' doesn't exist, attempting to create it.
ERROR: Failed to parse block device name for '/dev/sdb1'
ERROR: Unable to create/detect root device '/dev/sdb1'

Dropping to a recovery shell... type 'exit to reboot
NOTE:klibc contains no 'lc' binary, use 'echo *' instead

If the device '/dev/sdb1' gets created while you are here, try adding 'rootdelay=8' or higher to the kernel command-line

ramfs$

I cannot type anything here by the way, since my keyboard doesnt seem to have been powered on and loaded.

I don't remember much about the update prior to this, but I do remember that at the end there were some problems with "ELF headers"

Please help!

Barrucadu · 2008-08-23 10:49:45

Can you post the output of fdisk -l (use a live cd or something)?

Mr.Elendig · 2008-08-23 10:54:23

Try the fallback image. If that works, then regenerate the main initcpio.

ronandi · 2008-08-23 10:54:52

Thanks for the reply. Sure, I'll do that... I think I still have some ubuntu live cds lying around somewhere

Mr.Elendig wrote:

Try the fallback image. If that works, then regenerate the main initcpio.

I tried selected the fallback in grub, but to no avail. The same thing happened. How do I regenerate the main initcpio?

Last edited by ronandi (2008-08-23 11:22:50)

ronandi · 2008-08-23 11:38:53

Barrucadu wrote:

Can you post the output of fdisk -l (use a live cd or something)?

fdisk -l gave me nothing at all (Using Ubuntu 8.09 LTS Live)

Here's my pacman log for the day though: (I dont know where the ELF errors all went though )
http://pastebin.com/m735736cd

Ramses de Norre · 2008-08-23 12:03:20

Did you try adding the "rootfstype=" kernel option to your kernel line as the error message tells you?

ronandi · 2008-08-23 12:09:11

Ramses de Norre wrote:

Did you try adding the "rootfstype=" kernel option to your kernel line as the error message tells you?

no I didnt. do I try that through grub? I'm guessing the full thing should be: rootfstype=ext3?

OneEyedPimp · 2008-08-23 17:54:26

yeah, when you boot up look at the options under the selection menu in grub. You have to press 'e' or something to edit it, then go to the root section and add rootfstype=ext3 to the end. You probably need to rebuild you initcpio: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mkinitcpio I dont know if you can do that with Arch install cd.

EDIT: Yeah just double checked. You press 'e' and then 'e' again and add it to the end of your root section. then 'b' to boot it.

Last edited by OneEyedPimp (2008-08-23 18:00:01)

ronandi · 2008-08-24 00:14:24

OneEyedPimp wrote:

yeah, when you boot up look at the options under the selection menu in grub. You have to press 'e' or something to edit it, then go to the root section and add rootfstype=ext3 to the end. You probably need to rebuild you initcpio: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mkinitcpio I dont know if you can do that with Arch install cd.
EDIT: Yeah just double checked. You press 'e' and then 'e' again and add it to the end of your root section. then 'b' to boot it.

I tried doing that, but its still happening

Ramses de Norre · 2008-08-24 13:49:22

I've had something similar, but I can't remember whether it was the exact same error message. Solution was to configure grub with persistent device names, look at the wiki for instructions: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Per … ot_manager

How to assign labels to your partitions is described on the same page.

pyther · 2008-08-24 15:49:55

Maybe your filesystem is corrupted, have you run an fsck on the drive?

whot · 2008-08-24 17:44:41

I agree with Ramses, this sounds like a persistent device naming problem.

Here is how I fixed it when I had this problem: http://bbs.archlinux.org/post.php?tid=51354

Search the wiki for "persistent device naming".

Good Luck.

rooloo · 2008-08-25 02:36:19

whot wrote:

I agree with Ramses, this sounds like a persistent device naming problem.
Here is how I fixed it when I had this problem: http://bbs.archlinux.org/post.php?tid=51354
Search the wiki for "persistent device naming".
Good Luck.

i triple agree if you have more then one physical drive, check your fstab, make sure you are using UUID.

Has to do with the new libsata that sets all drives to use the sdxX convention. Even those that are not sata drives.

you could also try bootring with legacy drivers for the HD's then you should not see this problem either.

ronandi · 2008-09-06 18:48:56

Well this is my grub menu.lst:

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux
root   (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb1 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

# (1) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux Fallback
root   (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb1 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img

and heres my fstab:

# 
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system>        <dir>         <type>    <options>          <dump> <pass>
none                   /dev/pts      devpts    defaults            0      0
none                   /dev/shm      tmpfs     defaults            0      0


#/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom   auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/cdrom1 /media/cdrom1   auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/dvd /media/dvd   auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/dvd1 /media/dvd1   auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/fd0 /media/fd0   auto    user,noauto   0      0
/dev/sdb1 / ext3 defaults 0 1
/dev/sdb2 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sdb3 /home ext3 defaults 0 1

Looks like its already using the sdxX convention isn't it? or am i missing something (I dont see what to change so... its still not working )

Ramses de Norre · 2008-09-07 11:26:37

Did you read the wiki page about persistent device naming that I gave you? It should answer your questions and make clear what you need to change in your fstab and menu.lst.

ScriptDevil · 2008-09-07 14:13:35

I dunno how it happened, I got the same error but when I added raid to hooks, I got it booting. I may never know why, but it has worked twice for me. This seems very arch specific as a bug. Maybe someone who "does" the init scripts must work on it

whot · 2008-09-07 20:19:28

It's not just a question of changing hdx to sdx. The partitons can be named in different order on each boot. For instance, from your fstab your root partition is at /dev/sdb1. But from your first post you see the boot loader cant find the root partition at /dev/sdb1. It may be at /dev/sdb2 on this boot and may be /dev/sdb3 on the next boot. Persistant device naming will fix this. Following the directions in the wiki on persistant device naming should fix the problem your having.

If your not sure what UUID to use for which partition please post the output to the following commands:

$ ls -lF /dev/disk/by-label

$ ls -lF /dev/disk/by-uuid/

Good Luck.

ronandi · 2008-09-09 22:01:46

whot wrote:

It's not just a question of changing hdx to sdx. The partitons can be named in different order on each boot. For instance, from your fstab your root partition is at /dev/sdb1. But from your first post you see the boot loader cant find the root partition at /dev/sdb1. It may be at /dev/sdb2 on this boot and may be /dev/sdb3 on the next boot. Persistant device naming will fix this. Following the directions in the wiki on persistant device naming should fix the problem your having.
If your not sure what UUID to use for which partition please post the output to the following commands:
$ ls -lF /dev/disk/by-label
$ ls -lF /dev/disk/by-uuid/

Good Luck.

ok used an ubuntu cd again:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ls -lF /dev/disk/by-label
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2008-09-09 17:23 Local\x20Disk -> ../../sdb4

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ls -lF /dev/disk/by-uuid/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2008-09-09 17:23 2bff1095-e404-436e-aad1-2812950d4fcc -> ../../sdb2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2008-09-09 17:23 31c4083a-66cf-4309-950d-33162e1426ec -> ../../sdb3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2008-09-09 17:23 42E40025E4001DB3 -> ../../sda2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2008-09-09 17:23 62C41AB6C41A8C83 -> ../../sdb4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2008-09-09 17:23 db67b77a-c2d8-4fec-9209-e3cd6a00477c -> ../../sdb1

heres my updated fstab:

# 
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system>        <dir>         <type>    <options>          <dump> <pass>
none                   /dev/pts      devpts    defaults            0      0
none                   /dev/shm      tmpfs     defaults            0      0


#/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom   auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/cdrom1 /media/cdrom1   auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/dvd /media/dvd   auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/dvd1 /media/dvd1   auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/fd0 /media/fd0   auto    user,noauto   0      0
/dev/disk/by-uuid/db67b77a-c2d8-4fec-9209-e3cd6a00477c / ext3 defaults 0 1
/dev/disk/by-uuid/2bff1095-e404-436e-aad1-2812950d4fcc swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/disk/by-uuid/31c4083a-66cf-4309-950d-33162e1426ec /home ext3 defaults 0 1

The problem still persists...

Last edited by ronandi (2008-09-09 22:06:39)

sm4tik · 2008-09-10 04:04:17

Try if changing your grub's menu.lst kernel and initrd lines from

kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb1 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

to

kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb1 ro
initrd /kernel26.img

helps.
Atleast there's no /boot present in my menu.lst.. but don't ask any further questions, my knowledge is pure copy/paste

Last edited by sm4tik (2008-09-10 04:05:25)

idjut · 2008-09-15 09:00:51

I have the same problem. Changing to persistent drive names didn't work out so I guess I have to rebuild mkinicpio with raid. How do I do this through knoppix? The fallback image doesn't work.

EDIT: Found out about chroot and fixed it. (rebuilt mkinitcpio with raid added to hooks if anyone else have troubles)

Last edited by idjut (2008-09-15 09:49:32)

whot · 2008-09-16 01:06:12

In your menu.lst file change your kernel line from this:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb1 ro

to this:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/db67b77a-c2d8-4fec-9209-e3cd6a00477c ro

Also, change your initrd line back to what you had originally:

initrd /boot/kernel26.img rootfstype=ext3

Last edited by whot (2008-09-16 01:11:03)

idjut · 2008-09-16 03:51:17

I had to rebuild mkinitcpio. Then it worked fine.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-08-23 10:30:21

Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#2 2008-08-23 10:49:45

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#3 2008-08-23 10:54:23

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#4 2008-08-23 10:54:52

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#5 2008-08-23 11:38:53

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#6 2008-08-23 12:03:20

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#7 2008-08-23 12:09:11

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#8 2008-08-23 17:54:26

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#9 2008-08-24 00:14:24

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#10 2008-08-24 13:49:22

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#11 2008-08-24 15:49:55

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#12 2008-08-24 17:44:41

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#13 2008-08-25 02:36:19

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#14 2008-09-06 18:48:56

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#15 2008-09-07 11:26:37

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#16 2008-09-07 14:13:35

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#17 2008-09-07 20:19:28

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#18 2008-09-09 22:01:46

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#19 2008-09-10 04:04:17

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#20 2008-09-15 09:00:51

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#21 2008-09-16 01:06:12

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

#22 2008-09-16 03:51:17

Re: Root fs cannot be detected after I updated and rebooted

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