[SOLVED] Archlinux does not boot any more after update

Zmann · 2010-10-02 10:37:48

Hi all,

yesterday I decided to update my Archlinux system again after postponing the updates for some weeks.
In general I update anything except kernel stuff, but this did lead to some dependency problems recently,
so I decided to make a full upgrade now via pacman.

After restarting the system, the kernel refused to boot. It told me, that it couldn't find my root partition /dev/sdc1 and left
me in an almost useless recovery shell. The error was:

ERROR: Unable to determine major/minor number of root device /dev/sdc1

Has anyone an idea, what might have happened? I had to install Ubuntu into a free partition to post this
topic. The disks and partitions are okay, I managed to "boot" using the old kernel, but of course the system
remained useless in that case due to wrong kernel module versions.

Thanks in advance for any hint, how to proceed.

Cheers, Zmann

Last edited by Zmann (2012-06-02 20:56:39)

tomk · 2010-10-02 10:56:24

Can you boot with the fallback initramfs image?

graysky · 2010-10-02 11:05:17

Yeah, it's kernel 2.6.35 that's f*cking you. Install the LTS kernel until they fix it. See, https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 55#p816055.

Last edited by graysky (2010-10-02 11:06:34)

tomk · 2010-10-02 13:16:32

graysky - Zmann has not specified which drive controller he is using, so it is premature to assume that he is experiencing the sata_sil issue described in that bug report. Your enthusiasm is noted, but it would be more helpful if you put a little more thought into it.

graysky · 2010-10-02 13:30:49

tomk wrote:

graysky - Zmann has not specified which drive controller he is using, so it is premature to assume that he is experiencing the sata_sil issue described in that bug report. Your enthusiasm is noted, but it would be more helpful if you put a little more thought into it.

True, I did make an assumption... @op are you using an older SATA controller? You might wanna try the lts kernel anyway to see if you can boot with it in either case. Please report back.

Zmann · 2010-10-02 20:16:25

Hi all,

thanks for the quick replies and sorry for the delay (children prioritized :-)

Yes, I'm using an older SATA controller (more or less 6 years), so the problem might be related to what you posted.
I was not able to boot the old fallback kernel, same error message. The fallback kernel simply uses a different initrd
file, perhaps I should think about a more sophisticated approach.

Nevertheless I already checked the file /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and it did not contain a hook called autodetect. So maybe
the mkinitcpio won't help anyway? Should I prefer using the suggested LTS kernel instead? I assume, this is done by booting
using an archlinux CD, then chroot and using pacman? Maybe it's sufficient to chroot from the currently running ubuntu instead?

Or will the booted kernel have any influence to mkinitcpio or the like?

Cheers, Zmann

Zmann · 2010-10-02 21:11:05

Hi all,

the problem is solved by now: I had to remove the raid hook from /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
Now the system is bootable and up.

It became obvious, when I called mkinitcpio after chroot: it told me about the unsupported
hook. This was probably also displayed during the update, but it was late then and there were many
package updates.

Now the system booted, but I got a warning during the boot process, that the raids could not
be activated. After boot process had finished, mdadm told me, the raids were okay and up. Is
there any switch to be deactivated to avoid the warning during bootup?

Cheers and thanks again for the quick help, Zmann

Arch Linux

#1 2010-10-02 10:37:48

[SOLVED] Archlinux does not boot any more after update

#2 2010-10-02 10:56:24

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux does not boot any more after update

#3 2010-10-02 11:05:17

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux does not boot any more after update

#4 2010-10-02 13:16:32

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux does not boot any more after update

#5 2010-10-02 13:30:49

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux does not boot any more after update

#6 2010-10-02 20:16:25

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux does not boot any more after update

#7 2010-10-02 21:11:05

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux does not boot any more after update

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