Arch Linux

firepol

Member

From: Switzerland

Registered: 2008-10-08

Posts: 3

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[SOLVED] USB installation, booting: root fs cannot be detected

I followed this guide: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ins … _a_USB_key

SYMPTOMS

I installed arch linux on a USB stick.

I can see Grub, I can boot. After the HOOKS get loaded (udev is loaded as well: Loading udev...done.) I get errors as follows:

Attempting to create root device '/dev/disk/by-uuid/myHdUUID'
unknown
ERROR: root fs cannot be detected. Try using rootfstype= kernel parameter.

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

Then I get a prompt that doesn't even let me issue the command "ls" (error: /bin/bash: ls: not found

SOLUTION: use the fallback image, or better, rebuild your mkinitcpio kernel image, see: Configuring mkinitcpio

My problem was that "usb" was not included in the HOOKS, it was present, yes but after the "autodetect".

So, in the /etc/mkinitcpio.conf place "usb" before "autodetect", e.g. as follows:

HOOKS="base udev autodetect sata filesystems"

then regenerate the image (refer to the previous link to understand why the autodetect was creating the problems and to see exactly how to regenerate the image)

Last edited by firepol (2008-10-09 19:18:34)