Arch Linux

murfMan

Member

Registered: 2009-10-27

Posts: 161

[SOLVED] latest -Syu completly broke my system plz help

I just did a sudo pacman -Syu,  now when i reboot im am greeted with a grub prompt?  i have never seen this screen before in my life

GNU GRUB version 0.97 (640K lower /1046067K upper memory)

Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported.  For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions.  Anywhere else TAB lists the possible completions of a device/filename. ]

Grub>_

for some reason its not listing all my partitions.
Grub> root
(hd0,0): Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition tpe 0x83

please help.

edit:

I just booted up a Ubuntu Live CD and the partitions are in fact there ....

/dev/sda1   ext2 101.97 MiB   /boot
/dev/sda2  linux-swap
/dev/sda3  ext4  27.33 GiB    /
/dev/sda4  ext4 119.56GiB    /home
unallocated: 1.76GiB

but whenever i try to boot from grub off my hard drive i get the grub prompt and no other drives are showing up except /boot

Last edited by murfMan (2010-04-21 03:34:06)

hokasch

Member

Registered: 2007-09-23

Posts: 1,461

Re: [SOLVED] latest -Syu completly broke my system plz help

/boot should be all you need! try if you get into the menu.lst with

configfile (hd0,0)/grub/menu.lst

here is a good how to:
http://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index … =14&t=5025
and a bit more general:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/4622?page=0,1

murfMan

Member

Registered: 2009-10-27

Posts: 161

Re: [SOLVED] latest -Syu completly broke my system plz help

configfile (hd0,0) /grub/menu.lst
error 15: File not found

edit: my partitions are showing up in grub

if i do root (hd0, <TAB>

it lists them all.  problem is, im cant find my kernel or a menu.lst or anything.  do i need to rebuild my boot images with a live cd or something?

Last edited by murfMan (2010-04-21 00:00:35)

hokasch

Member

Registered: 2007-09-23

Posts: 1,461

Re: [SOLVED] latest -Syu completly broke my system plz help

hmm, after a "root (hd0,0)", the kernel should show up with "kernel /"-tab... supposing hd0,0 = /dev/sda1 = /boot
but honestly, I have no idea what could have gone wrong here... so maybe something else is screwed. all I can think off is to check again with the live cd if kernel and initrd are in place, and do a fsck.

murfMan

Member

Registered: 2009-10-27

Posts: 161

Re: [SOLVED] latest -Syu completly broke my system plz help

how can i check if the kernel and initrd are there with the live cd? 

also i tried to boot existing linux install with the live cd and i got file not found.

hokasch

Member

Registered: 2007-09-23

Posts: 1,461

Re: [SOLVED] latest -Syu completly broke my system plz help

just mount the /boot partition in the live cd

murfMan

Member

Registered: 2009-10-27

Posts: 161

Re: [SOLVED] latest -Syu completly broke my system plz help

mount /dev/disk/by-label/? i dont exactly know how to do that im a noob sorry

plus half of the text is hanging off the left side of the screen so i cant see half of the names

Last edited by murfMan (2010-04-21 00:31:01)

hokasch

Member

Registered: 2007-09-23

Posts: 1,461

Re: [SOLVED] latest -Syu completly broke my system plz help

no problem. boot up the live cd and open a terminal. basically, the syntax is "mount something somewhere". the man page gives you all the options, or have a look at the interwebs, e.g.
http://www.linuxhotbox.com/adminguide/lnag_drives.html

if its an ubuntu live cd, you probably can mount the drive through the gui.

murfMan

Member

Registered: 2009-10-27

Posts: 161

Re: [SOLVED] latest -Syu completly broke my system plz help

its the arch live cd.

mount -t ext2 /dev/disk/by-id/sata-ST3160023AS_5Mt11LF9-part-1 /mnt
mount: special device /dev/disk/by-id/sata-ST3160023AS_5Mt11LF9-part-1 does not exist

Last edited by murfMan (2010-04-21 00:32:31)

hokasch

Member

Registered: 2007-09-23

Posts: 1,461

Re: [SOLVED] latest -Syu completly broke my system plz help

"/dev/sd" -tab is easier

Last edited by hokasch (2010-04-21 00:31:58)

murfMan

Member

Registered: 2009-10-27

Posts: 161

Re: [SOLVED] latest -Syu completly broke my system plz help

ok i got it mounted ...

...

nothing is there.  when i mount the other partitions all of those files are still there

so weird.  how could it just get blown away like that? also how can i fix it?

Last edited by murfMan (2010-04-21 00:34:22)

hokasch

Member

Registered: 2007-09-23

Posts: 1,461

Re: [SOLVED] latest -Syu completly broke my system plz help

odd and not so good. how is / and /home? what kind of upgrade was it, what did pacman say? you can stilll access the log once you mount root under /var/log/pacman

edit: no idea why that should be, but do you have /boot in your root partition?

Last edited by hokasch (2010-04-21 00:38:59)

murfMan

Member

Registered: 2009-10-27

Posts: 161

Re: [SOLVED] latest -Syu completly broke my system plz help

/ and /home are fine.

the thing is ... i rebooted for the first time in 8 days today (after my update) so it could have been something else i did.

pacman log says:

acl
acroread
artwiz-fonts
libcddb
asunder
diffutils
autoconf
curl
db
device-mapper
dhcpcd
ncurses
dialog
dmd
findutils
gettext
gimp
git
gnome-icon-theme
gtk-engines
hsqldb-java
hunspell
hyphen
icu
imagemagick
jre
kbd
libao
libdrm
libmatroska
libpcap
libsigc++
libvorbis
lvm2
make
mdadm
mkinitcpio-busybox
mpd
nano
neon
net-snmp
ntfs-3g
perl-xyne-arch
phpmyadmin
pkgconfig
pmquirks
pm-utils
rdesktop
recode
sed
subversion
sudo
syslog-ng
taglib
ttf-ms-fonts
util-linux-ng
hdf5
vigra
vlc
which
wine

edit i have a /boot in / but it is empty

Last edited by murfMan (2010-04-21 00:44:42)

hokasch

Member

Registered: 2007-09-23

Posts: 1,461

Re: [SOLVED] latest -Syu completly broke my system plz help

as a rule of thumb, reboot after bigger updates, and do not make "rm -r /boot/*"
Now you could chroot into your install and reinstall the kernel:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ker … all_kernel
Since grub's files are no more, as it seems, you should reinstall it first.
Good luck!

murfMan

Member

Registered: 2009-10-27

Posts: 161

Re: [SOLVED] latest -Syu completly broke my system plz help

hey thanks for the guide ... i believe i am getting closer.  i managed to roll back my kernel with pacman.  but what about initrd? i cant find it

murfMan

Member

Registered: 2009-10-27

Posts: 161

Re: [SOLVED] latest -Syu completly broke my system plz help

UPDATE: i fixed it.  

i was able to reinstall my kernel, reinstall grub and create a grub/menu.lst in /boot with live cd and chroot.

thank you hokasch for all of your help

*its amazing how much you learn when your system breaks. 

Last edited by murfMan (2010-04-21 03:33:44)