Root device not found, i get dropped to "recovery shell". Help!

trusktr · 2010-09-04 19:22:04

During boot (dmesg, not the actual Arch boot screens, and only once in a while) I get an error like this:

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

Then it drops me to a "recovery shell".
Here's a screen shot:

Then when I type exit to continue it shows this:

Any idea why this happens when i boot (only once in a while), and if so, how to prevent it?

Last edited by trusktr (2010-12-02 20:28:17)

cesura · 2010-09-04 19:52:29

I'm assuming the UUID of your device has changed somehow. That's why I like using /dev/sda*.

trusktr · 2010-09-04 20:00:55

What do you mean by sda* ?

I'm using UUID inside fstab. Before, when i had /dev/sda1 (etc) in fstab sometimes Bios would load the drives in random order so when booting Arch, the root device would be mapped to sdb and Arch wouldn't boot at all. This happened fairly often, and since I started using UUID, i hardly ever get stuck on boot except for this thing i mentioned here, but not often.

olvar · 2010-09-04 20:13:23

is it related to this http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/20614??

Last edited by olvar (2010-09-04 20:16:23)

trusktr · 2010-12-02 20:25:32

Hey olvar, yes, it's similar to that bug, except one thing: this is only happening to me only SOMETIMES (rarely)... most of the time i turn on my computer just fine, and boot into my desktop... But every so often, i will experience this issue and i will be dropped to this "recovery shell"... then if i reboot the computer it will go away and i will resume like normal...

tomk · 2010-12-02 21:32:04

There are some messages there worth investigating - specifically

ata1.00: failed to IDENTIFY (I/O error, err_mask-0x1)

and

ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)

In particular, you should check if these messages also appear during successful boots.

itsbrad212 wrote:

I'm assuming the UUID of your device has changed somehow. That's why I like using /dev/sda*.

itsbrad212 - this is an intermittent error. Are you also assuming that the UUID gets changed back somehow? Can you link to the reports of spontaneous UUID changes upon which you have based your assumption?

trusktr · 2010-12-03 16:45:55

Indeed, no i didn't get the "failed to IDENTIFY" errors on a successful boot. dmesg|grep "ata1.00: " looks like this:

ata1.00: ATA-6: WDC WD1200JB-00EVA0, 15.05R15, max UDMA/100
ata1.00: 234441648 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100

But i did however still get the SATA link down errors:

ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata7: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 310)
ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata8: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 310)

I'm not sure what it means, if I find something i'll post... hmmm...

Last edited by trusktr (2010-12-03 16:46:22)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-09-04 19:22:04

Root device not found, i get dropped to "recovery shell". Help!

#2 2010-09-04 19:52:29

Re: Root device not found, i get dropped to "recovery shell". Help!

#3 2010-09-04 20:00:55

Re: Root device not found, i get dropped to "recovery shell". Help!

#4 2010-09-04 20:13:23

Re: Root device not found, i get dropped to "recovery shell". Help!

#5 2010-12-02 20:25:32

Re: Root device not found, i get dropped to "recovery shell". Help!

#6 2010-12-02 21:32:04

Re: Root device not found, i get dropped to "recovery shell". Help!

#7 2010-12-03 16:45:55

Re: Root device not found, i get dropped to "recovery shell". Help!

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