Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot: SOLVED

Message

bentHnau · #1 Post by **bentHnau** » 2019-11-14 18:33

I have Debian on my primary laptop partition and Hyperbola (an Arch-based distro with Debian security patches) on the other. A week ago, I chrooted into Hyperbola from Debian and updated Hyperbola. Then I upgraded Debian 9 to 10. Ever since then, I have not been able to access Hyperbola. When I choose Hyperbola from the grub menu at boot time, I get this error

Code: Select all

ERROR: device UUID=blah-blah-hyperbola-partition not found. Skipping fsck.
mount: can't find blah-blah
You are being dropped into an emergency shell.
sh: can't access tty: job control turned off

Then I'm at a [rootfs] prompt, but no characters appear on the screen when I type and I can't do anything but hit the power button. When I log into Debian, I can still mount and chroot into Hyperbola, but Hyperbola is never mounted at boot time.

I don't know whether something I did in Debian is the problem, but that's the only OS I have access to at this point and so it's what I'll have to use to fix this, so I'm asking here instead of the Hyperbola forums.

Dai_trying · #2 Post by **Dai_trying** » 2019-11-14 19:05

First thing I would try is to update grub to make sure it is up to date, and if that doesn't work I would check the UUID of the Hyperbola installation to make sure it is correct both in the grub menu (press e to edit and look at the entry) and also in the fstab of Hyperbola.

bentHnau · #3 Post by **bentHnau** » 2019-11-16 00:12

Dai_trying wrote:First thing I would try is to update grub to make sure it is up to date, and if that doesn't work I would check the UUID of the Hyperbola installation to make sure it is correct both in the grub menu (press e to edit and look at the entry) and also in the fstab of Hyperbola.

Neither of those helped. The grub menu entry is correct. Doesn't upgrading grub merely control the entries in the grub menu (rather than mounting)?

shep · #4 Post by **shep** » 2019-11-16 02:55

If you took the defaults on a Debian 10 install and your BIOS is UEFI capable, then you have a GPT partition. If your BIOS is not UEFI capable, then you have MBR partitioning. How you restore your GRUB boot entries depends on UEFI vs MBR.

The first step I would do is check your partition with a partition tool that you are comfortable with. You may have to install one.
https://wiki.debian.org/Partition

If the partitions are intact (an upgrade should not re-part;ion your disk(s), then check the boot entries If you edited /boot/grub/grub.cfg directly to get your initial dual boot system, it was likely replaced during the upgrade. This is the reason direct editing of /boot/grub/grub.cfg is discouraged. If you had a /etc/grub.d/40-custom entry, the contents would be appended to /boot/grub/grub.cfg automatically during an upgrade.

Dai_trying · #5 Post by **Dai_trying** » 2019-11-16 08:34

bentHnau wrote:
Dai_trying wrote:First thing I would try is to update grub to make sure it is up to date, and if that doesn't work I would check the UUID of the Hyperbola installation to make sure it is correct both in the grub menu (press e to edit and look at the entry) and also in the fstab of Hyperbola.
Neither of those helped. The grub menu entry is correct. Doesn't upgrading grub merely control the entries in the grub menu (rather than mounting)?

You are right updating grub will not affect mounting, unless your current grub is pointing to the wrong UUID and in that case the entry would likely be removed as it is unavailable and also the update would point to the correct UUID as it finds it. The fstab entry of your hyperbola installation should control the actual mounting and so would also need to be correct, but these two things are both quite important for correct booting.

You say neither of those helped but you didn't say if UUID was correct in grub AND in Hyperbola's fstab, or whether you had to change anything, IME it is quite important to let others know what you did or didn't do and any effect it had (or didn't have) for us to be able to suggest anything else.

Simply saying it didn't help is often used when a user thinks it will do no good and so does nothing. I am not saying this is what you have (or havent) done but it is how I often interpret these things when I read them, after all if the user does not supply relevant information we (Debian users) have to start a guessing game which many (including myself) do not want to do.

Maybe you could post the contents of fstab from Hyperbola together with the result of lsblk -o +uuid (from Debian).

#6 Post by **p.H** » 2019-11-16 21:05

Also post at least the contents of the Hyperbola menu entry in /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

Did you try replacing "root=UUID=xxx" in the menu entry with "root=/dev/sda2" (or whatever the Hyperbola partition is) in GRUB ("e") before booting Hyperbola ?
This is not recommended for normal use (unreliable) but may help in this situation.

bentHnau · #7 Post by **bentHnau** » 2019-11-17 23:35

shep wrote:If you took the defaults on a Debian 10 install and your BIOS is UEFI capable, then you have a GPT partition. If your BIOS is not UEFI capable, then you have MBR partitioning. How you restore your GRUB boot entries depends on UEFI vs MBR.

Ok. Do you think there is a problem with my grub entry? I'm not sure whether you are suggesting this because I didn't give enough information about what I'd done so far or whether what I've posted actually suggests a problem with the grub entry.

The first step I would do is check your partition with a partition tool that you are comfortable with. You may have to install one.

I used gparted. Everything looked normal; the partition showed up and it's UUID iss the same as the one in grub and Hyperbola's fstab. The only strange thing was that gparted threw the error

Code: Select all

Unit tmp.mount does not exist, proceeding anyway.

just before the GUI started up.

If you edited /boot/grub/grub.cfg directly to get your initial dual boot system

I didn't. Just installed the second OS and then updated grub in the first OS.

If you had a /etc/grub.d/40-custom entry

I do have one, but I'm fairly sure that I didn't create it. Besides comments, there is nothing in it except

Code: Select all

exec tail -n +3 $0

./boot/grub/grub.cfg doesn't contain that line, but it does say "Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above."

bentHnau · #8 Post by **bentHnau** » 2019-11-17 23:41

Dai_trying wrote: You say neither of those helped but you didn't say if UUID was correct in grub AND in Hyperbola's fstab, or whether you had to change anything

The UUID was the same in each one. I didn't change anything.

Maybe you could post the contents of fstab from Hyperbola together with the result of lsblk -o +uuid (from Debian).

here is the fstab:

Code: Select all

# 
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system>	<dir>	<type>	<options>	<dump>	<pass>
# /dev/sdb2
UUID=b6076c5a-8b2f-4acf-af9a-37a114d389c7	/         	ext4      	rw,relatime,data=ordered	0 1
# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=ac2b1f54-c797-4f5e-9656-834ae2d6ccbb none            swap    sw 	   	0       0

Here is the output of lsblk -o +uuid

Code: Select all

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT UUID
sda      8:0    0 465.8G  0 disk            
├─sda1   8:1    0   454G  0 part /          ac2b1f54-c797-4f5e-9656-834ae2d6ccbb
├─sda2   8:2    0     1K  0 part            
└─sda5   8:5    0  11.8G  0 part [SWAP]     ef6867ad-887c-4270-bbb9-6b7b4e28b048
sdb      8:16   0 465.8G  0 disk            
├─sdb1   8:17   0   3.5G  0 part            a56aa0ac-dcf0-4d43-b38b-8fac5979cfbc
└─sdb2   8:18   0 462.3G  0 part /mnt       b6076c5a-8b2f-4acf-af9a-37a114d389c7
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom

bentHnau · #9 Post by **bentHnau** » 2019-11-17 23:54

p.H wrote:Also post at least the contents of the Hyperbola menu entry in /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

Code: Select all

menuentry 'Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre (on /dev/sdb2)' --class hyperbola --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux-simple-b6076c5a-8b2f-4acf-af9a-37a114d389c7' {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='hd1,msdos2'
	if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd1,msdos2 --hint-efi=hd1,msdos2 --hint-baremetal=ahci1,msdos2  b6076c5a-8b2f-4acf-af9a-37a114d389c7
	else
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root b6076c5a-8b2f-4acf-af9a-37a114d389c7
	fi
	linux /boot/vmlinuz-linux-libre-lts root=UUID=b6076c5a-8b2f-4acf-af9a-37a114d389c7 rw quiet nouveau.config=NvBios=PRAMIN
	initrd /boot/initramfs-linux-libre-lts.img
}

Did you try replacing "root=UUID=xxx" in the menu entry with "root=/dev/sda2" (or whatever the Hyperbola partition is) in GRUB ("e") before booting Hyperbola ?

Yes. The same thing happened with almost the exact same error, except it said "/dev/sdb2 not found" instead of "UUID=xxx not found." It also said

Code: Select all

mount: you must specify the filesystem type

Was I supposed to add something else to specify filesystem type?

Dai_trying · #10 Post by **Dai_trying** » 2019-11-18 07:25

Your swap partition is wrong in your fstab, usually this would result in a 90 second boot delay but maybe you don't wait that long? try changing that to the correct one and see if that helps.

Your fstab entry
UUID=ac2b1f54-c797-4f5e-9656-834ae2d6ccbb none swap sw 0 0

should be
UUID=ef6867ad-887c-4270-bbb9-6b7b4e28b048 swap swap sw 0 0

It looks like you are trying to mount your 454Gb partition as swap.

#11 Post by **p.H** » 2019-11-18 09:20

bentHnau wrote:Yes. The same thing happened with almost the exact same error, except it said "/dev/sdb2 not found" instead of "UUID=xxx not found

Hyperbola's kernel (/boot/vmlinuz-linux-libre-lts) or initramfs (/boot/initramfs-linux-libre-lts.img) may be broken and lack some required features or kernel modules. Or the initramfs may contain modules from the wrong (previous) kernel version.
Missing USB modules would explain why the keyboard does not work if you use a USB keyboard.
Missing SATA disk modules would explain why the root partition is not found.

Can you check the contents of the initramfs with lsinitramfs ?

bentHnau wrote:Was I supposed to add something else to specify filesystem type?

Usually, mount is able to find out the filesystem type automatically. Some flavours of mount with limited capabilities (which may be used in the initramfs) may require to specify rootfstype= in the kernel command line.

The swap UUID in fstab is wrong but it is not related with the root partition not found.

Dai_trying · #12 Post by **Dai_trying** » 2019-11-18 11:11

p.H wrote:The swap UUID in fstab is wrong but it is not related with the root partition not found.

I beg to differ...

#13 Post by **p.H** » 2019-11-18 12:44

Why ?

Dai_trying · #14 Post by **Dai_trying** » 2019-11-18 15:00

Because of the fstab configuration, trying to mount sda1 (454Gb partition) as a swap partition without a mount allocation (set as none) which I would say is pretty much the whole issue. I am not 100% certain but I cannot see any other reason for OP's issue.

#15 Post by **p.H** » 2019-11-19 14:42

Your theory does not match the messages reported in post #1.

Dai_trying · #16 Post by **Dai_trying** » 2019-11-19 16:05

But it does match the output reported in #8

bentHnau · #17 Post by **bentHnau** » 2019-11-23 20:59

Dai_trying wrote:Your swap partition is wrong in your fstab, usually this would result in a 90 second boot delay but maybe you don't wait that long? try changing that to the correct one and see if that helps.

Your fstab entry
UUID=ac2b1f54-c797-4f5e-9656-834ae2d6ccbb none swap sw 0 0

should be
UUID=ef6867ad-887c-4270-bbb9-6b7b4e28b048 swap swap sw 0 0

It looks like you are trying to mount your 454Gb partition as swap.

I made this change. The root partition is still not found. I tried waiting 90 seconds; nothing changed.

bentHnau · #18 Post by **bentHnau** » 2019-11-23 21:06

p.H wrote: Can you check the contents of the initramfs with lsinitramfs ?

lsinitramfs /mnt/boot/initramfs-linux-libre-lts.img

Code: Select all

init
init_functions
sbin
lib
tmp
lib64
dev
config
run
new_root
hooks
hooks/udev
bin
usr
usr/sbin
usr/lib
usr/lib/libe2p.so.2
usr/lib/libuuid.so.1
usr/lib/libmount.so.1
usr/lib/libkmod.so.2
usr/lib/libpthread.so.0
usr/lib/libc.so.6
usr/lib/librt.so.1
usr/lib/libext2fs.so.2
usr/lib/libcom_err.so.2
usr/lib/libz.so.1
usr/lib/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2
usr/lib/libblkid.so.1
usr/lib/modprobe.d
usr/lib/modprobe.d/dummy.conf
usr/lib/udev
usr/lib/udev/rules.d
usr/lib/udev/rules.d/80-drivers.rules
usr/lib/udev/rules.d/64-btrfs.rules
usr/lib/udev/rules.d/60-persistent-storage.rules
usr/lib/udev/rules.d/50-udev-default.rules
usr/lib/udev/scsi_id
usr/lib/udev/ata_id
usr/lib/libcrypt.so.1
usr/lib/liblzma.so.5
usr/lib/modules
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/modules.symbols.bin
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/modules.alias.bin
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/modules.softdep
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/modules.devname
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/modules.builtin.bin
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/modules.dep.bin
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/usb-storage.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/ehci-pci.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/serio_raw.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/i8042.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/libahci.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/xhci-pci.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/xhci-hcd.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/atkbd.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/scsi_mod.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/fscrypto.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/usbhid.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/serio.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/mbcache.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/ehci-hcd.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/ahci.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/sr_mod.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/libata.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/jbd2.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/sd_mod.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/libps2.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/usb-common.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/hid.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/hid-generic.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/crc16.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/cdrom.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/usbcore.ko
usr/lib/modules/4.9.176-gnu-0-lts/kernel/ext4.ko
usr/lib/libdl.so.2
usr/lib64
usr/local
usr/local/sbin
usr/local/lib
usr/local/bin
usr/bin
usr/bin/ps
usr/bin/printf
usr/bin/false
usr/bin/init
usr/bin/uptime
usr/bin/rmmod
usr/bin/truncate
usr/bin/kmod
usr/bin/mkfifo
usr/bin/[[
usr/bin/pwd
usr/bin/basename
usr/bin/sh
usr/bin/wc
usr/bin/rm
usr/bin/umount
usr/bin/kill
usr/bin/sha256sum
usr/bin/cttyhack
usr/bin/chgrp
usr/bin/chroot
usr/bin/sha512sum
usr/bin/insmod
usr/bin/nsenter
usr/bin/losetup
usr/bin/dirname
usr/bin/blkdiscard
usr/bin/ip
usr/bin/fsck.ext2
usr/bin/grep
usr/bin/tftp
usr/bin/pgrep
usr/bin/nslookup
usr/bin/ipaddr
usr/bin/seq
usr/bin/mount
usr/bin/poweroff
usr/bin/cut
usr/bin/sort
usr/bin/hexdump
usr/bin/md5sum
usr/bin/true
usr/bin/iprule
usr/bin/echo
usr/bin/mktemp
usr/bin/tac
usr/bin/du
usr/bin/iptunnel
usr/bin/less
usr/bin/free
usr/bin/iproute
usr/bin/wget
usr/bin/unlink
usr/bin/sync
usr/bin/openvt
usr/bin/unshare
usr/bin/kbd_mode
usr/bin/cp
usr/bin/rmdir
usr/bin/lsmod
usr/bin/iplink
usr/bin/halt
usr/bin/nc
usr/bin/route
usr/bin/mkdir
usr/bin/clear
usr/bin/chown
usr/bin/telnet
usr/bin/pidof
usr/bin/udevadm
usr/bin/env
usr/bin/shuf
usr/bin/ash
usr/bin/netstat
usr/bin/setfont
usr/bin/yes
usr/bin/killall
usr/bin/depmod
usr/bin/loadkmap
usr/bin/mknod
usr/bin/fsck.ext4
usr/bin/fatattr
usr/bin/[
usr/bin/tail
usr/bin/expr
usr/bin/chmod
usr/bin/ping6
usr/bin/blkid
usr/bin/fsck
usr/bin/sleep
usr/bin/install
usr/bin/egrep
usr/bin/test
usr/bin/ping
usr/bin/readlink
usr/bin/cat
usr/bin/mkpasswd
usr/bin/ln
usr/bin/getopt
usr/bin/fstrim
usr/bin/modprobe
usr/bin/stat
usr/bin/head
usr/bin/mountpoint
usr/bin/awk
usr/bin/vi
usr/bin/fsck.ext3
usr/bin/sed
usr/bin/ls
usr/bin/df
usr/bin/touch
usr/bin/reboot
usr/bin/switch_root
usr/bin/mv
usr/bin/modinfo
usr/bin/dd
usr/bin/uniq
usr/bin/busybox
usr/bin/loadfont
usr/bin/ifconfig
usr/bin/strings
usr/bin/sha1sum
usr/bin/dmesg
usr/bin/udevd
usr/bin/uname
VERSION
proc
sys
buildconfig
etc
etc/fstab
etc/ld.so.conf
etc/mtab
etc/ld.so.cache
etc/initrd-release
etc/modprobe.d
etc/udev
etc/udev/udev.conf

Some flavours of mount with limited capabilities (which may be used in the initramfs) may require to specify rootfstype= in the kernel command line.

What do I use for the filesystem type? I tried rootfstype=ext4 (which gparted says is the correct type for Hyperbola). Nothing changed, same error.

Dai_trying · #19 Post by **Dai_trying** » 2019-11-23 21:36

You could try this in your fstab, you could either comment out all other lines or backup the file and create a fresh one with just this content.

Code: Select all

UUID=ac2b1f54-c797-4f5e-9656-834ae2d6ccbb / ext4 rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro   0 1
UUID=ef6867ad-887c-4270-bbb9-6b7b4e28b048 swap swap defaults 0 0

I don't know if you need the data=ordered my limited understanding is that it is more used with ext3 filesystem, but as you are using ext4 this should not be required. If you want to check the filesystem types you can use the command (and maybe post it here for brevity)

Code: Select all

lsblk -o +uuid,fstype

bentHnau · #20 Post by **bentHnau** » 2019-11-23 23:45

Dai_trying wrote:You could try this in your fstab, you could either comment out all other lines or backup the file and create a fresh one with just this content.
Code: Select all
UUID=ac2b1f54-c797-4f5e-9656-834ae2d6ccbb / ext4 rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro   0 1
UUID=ef6867ad-887c-4270-bbb9-6b7b4e28b048 swap swap defaults 0 0

What is the first UUID entry for? Apparently I don't understand what is supposed to be in fstab. Is there normally a listing for every mountable filesystem on the computer?

I don't know if you need the data=ordered my limited understanding is that it is more used with ext3 filesystem, but as you are using ext4 this should not be required. If you want to check the filesystem types you can use the command (and maybe post it here for brevity)
Code: Select all
lsblk -o +uuid,fstype

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT UUID FSTYPE
sda 8:0 0 465.8G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 454G 0 part / ac2b1f54-c797-4f5e-9656-834ae2d6ccbb ext4
├─sda2 8:2 0 1K 0 part
└─sda5 8:5 0 11.8G 0 part [SWAP] ef6867ad-887c-4270-bbb9-6b7b4e28b048 swap
sdb 8:16 0 465.8G 0 disk
├─sdb1 8:17 0 3.5G 0 part a56aa0ac-dcf0-4d43-b38b-8fac5979cfbc swap
└─sdb2 8:18 0 462.3G 0 part /mnt dbc9438f-1ad4-4fe9-9b82-ba8df589d81d ext4
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom

Hyperbola is identified by a different UUID now because I played with gparted. Is that going to cause a problem?

Debian User Forums

Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot: SOLVED

Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot: SOLVED

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot

Re: Upgraded, now my other distro not found at boot