[SOLVED] missing /boot files

I7IZI · 2011-05-23 14:39:25

I broke it, lol. I was learning how to chroot my environment and I managed to erase everything in my /boot directory. I've been able to restore the files necessary to get grub working but I haven't been able to restore any of the files for booting the kernel (System.map, vmlinuz), nor have I been able to find them anywhere else on my machine. So I guess my question is if I we're to compile the kernel through ABS could I use the output of the newly created files to restore my /boot directory, or is their a simpler route to success? Thanks for your help in advance.

Last edited by I7IZI (2011-05-23 16:44:06)

ewaller · 2011-05-23 15:32:23

I have no idea how much experience you have, so bear with me if I state the obvious here.

Most Arch installations have a separate boot partition which may be mounted in your file system at /boot. If, you are trying to update your boot partition inside of the chroot environment it must be mounted. If it is not, all changes are made to the root file system in a directory called /boot -- but files on the boot partition are not affected. Only when the boot partition is mounted on /boot do the files on that partition appear to be in the /boot directory of your file system.

Chroot into your environment.
Ensure /boot is not mounted.
Carefully erase all files in /boot
Mount the boot partition at /boot
Verify that files magically appeared by using ls /boot
Now do your updates
Unmount boot
Leave the Chroot.

Edit: Typo

Last edited by ewaller (2011-05-23 15:32:48)

I7IZI · 2011-05-23 16:16:10

Yeah, I definitely don't have a lot of experience fixing my machine, but I break it a lot, lol. So I believe what happened, now that I understand what I'm doing with chroot, is I had mounted everything correctly but I didn't correctly unmount my /boot partition and now everything has been wiped from there. The only thing that is on my /boot partition now is a grub directory from me that I made to copy important grub files to so I could get grub to boot, which works now. But everything else is still missing and I'm beginning to think that I will have to reinstall arch because I can't connect to wifi through chroot, which is the only connection point I have at home. Oh please help me save my machine, thank you! On a good note I'm learning a lot today with all the Google'ing and wiki reading.

I7IZI · 2011-05-23 16:22:40

ewaller wrote:

Ensure /boot is not mounted.
Carefully erase all files in /boot
Mount the boot partition at /boot
Verify that files magically appeared by using ls /boot

Lol, definitely no magic happening here. Thanks though.

fsckd · 2011-05-23 16:24:08

Reinstall kernel26 and other kernels you may have.

ewaller · 2011-05-23 16:36:41

fsckd wrote:

Reinstall kernel26 and other kernels you may have.

And note that this is probably already in your local cache (since you have installed it before) You can install it from chroot without requiring network access. If you have updated your package list and the system ties to grab a new version from the Ether, then tell pacman to explicitly install the version in your cache.

I7IZI · 2011-05-23 16:43:03

Yeah boiee! Thanks guys, this might be the first real fix I've done without doin a full reinstall! Funny how I tried to reinstall the kernel just as you were probably typing it or sending it. Supa Dupa Dank

Arch Linux

#1 2011-05-23 14:39:25

[SOLVED] missing /boot files

#2 2011-05-23 15:32:23

Re: [SOLVED] missing /boot files

#3 2011-05-23 16:16:10

Re: [SOLVED] missing /boot files

#4 2011-05-23 16:22:40

Re: [SOLVED] missing /boot files

#5 2011-05-23 16:24:08

Re: [SOLVED] missing /boot files

#6 2011-05-23 16:36:41

Re: [SOLVED] missing /boot files

#7 2011-05-23 16:43:03

Re: [SOLVED] missing /boot files

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