Stuck on the boot screen

Gregory.Opera · 12-09-2015, 02:07 AM

When I start-up my laptop, my BIOS loads fine and I even get the opportunity to (successfully) enter my encryption key (the disk is encrypted, as per the option in the “normal” Ubuntu installation procedure)...

But that's it - Ubuntu gets "stuck" with the message:

Code:

The disk drive for /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-swap_1 is not ready yet or not present.
Continue to wait, or press S to skip mounting or M for manual recovery.

Pressing "S" displays:

Code:

The disk drive for /dev/mapper/cryptswap1 is not ready yet or not present.
Continue to wait, or press S to skip mounting or M for manual recovery.

Pressing "S" a second time just causes the little "loading" dots to fill-up (i.e. so that they're colored), and then my laptop just sits there...

This laptop has been dead for a while, I've been using the kid's desktop for most of this year, so I can't really remember whether I made any drastic changes or not - though at most, I would have installed some updates (not that this information really helps, without knowing what was actually installed!). I do recall however, that my laptop failed immediately after rebooting...

Thus far, I have followed the instructions someone suggested on Reddit here and I have an Ask Ubuntu post here, though neither contains any information not yet posted here.

Any ideas on what the problem might be, and how I can fix it? I'm on leave from work for christmas, so I have an entire month to stuff around and get this issue fixed...

This has been posted on Ask Ubuntu, Reddit (they closed the original Reddit above), Ubuntu Forums and LinuxQuestions.

yancek · 12-09-2015, 08:01 AM

Some details on your hardware and the age of the laptop would help. Did you check the minimum hardware requirements at the Ubuntu site? Which release of Ubuntu are you using? It isn't clear to me if this is a new install or a previous install you simply haven't used for some time.
The message you are getting is commonly seen if a partition is on a drive that is not connected but that doesn't seem to be the case here? It also indicates you are using LVM which I am not familiar with so can't help with that. Do you have any Linux Live CD which you can use to get and post partition information by opening a terminal and running the following command: sudo fdisk -l or sudo parted -l(Lower Case Letter L in both commands.

rokytnji · 12-09-2015, 08:24 AM

Wild guess from a scooter tramp.

Improper shutdown of system corrupted the files on the internal hard drive.

Ubuntu has a recovery boot option in the menu. My 1st thing to attempt to fix something like this is to use the recovery boot option in the Ubuntu grub menu. Then when it asks to fix something. Say yes every time.

Takes just a few minutes and rules one thing out as a problem.

Edit: I do not run encrypted hard drives. So no knowledge from me on that issue.

Gregory.Opera · 12-10-2015, 01:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

Some details on your hardware and the age of the laptop would help. Did you check the minimum hardware requirements at the Ubuntu site? Which release of Ubuntu are you using? It isn't clear to me if this is a new install or a previous install you simply haven't used for some time.

I can't remember the model number, but it's an old Sony VAIO, about 5-6 years old and still using the original storage drive... It's running Ubuntu 14.10, updated/upgraded from earlier versions, so it's an existing installation.

Someone on another forum posted this guide (well, a link to it, anyway), which was a lot of help:
https://alvinabad.wordpress.com/2012...ncrypted-disk/

And I was able to get through the guide with relative ease, using a "live" DVD.

Though I am now stuck at a seemingly trivial step - the part that says (step 7a):

Quote:

Thats it. You can now view your data in /tmp/disk.

Okay, all of the Terminal commands worked fine (though it was a lengthy, tedious process)... But how do I "view" my data in /tmp/disk?

Worse-case scenario, I have an external storage drive here and I'd like to browse the storage drive in Nautilus/folder view, to work out what data I want to copy and thus save (not all of the data on my laptop needs to be saved)... Best-case scenario, I would like to "fix" the boot issue (removing the encryption permanently, if necessary), so that I copy the data over to the external storage drive "the normal way" (i.e. without the use of a "live" DVD and this lengthy process).

Lastly, I want to identify what the problem is/was - did something just get corrupted, or is my aging (laptop) storage drive finally on its way out?

--

UPDATE:

I can sort-of mount my laptop's storage drive when using a "live" DVD - when I login/launch the "test Ubuntu" part of the "live" DVD, it's (my laptop's storage drive) already shown on the Launcher, seemingly already mounted, just like any other storage drive (e.g. a "thumb" drive or external storage drive)... Once I click it and enter my decryption password (that I would normally use prior to the login screen of Ubuntu), I can even browse the storage drive, just like I would any other folder!

Unfortunately, when I try to open /home/gregoryopera, I am told (in a pop-up dialog box):

Code:

This location could not be displayed.

 You do not have the permissions necessary to view the contents of gregoryopera.

This is good, right?

If I am not mistaken, this means that all I need to do is somehow open this (Nautilus) folder as root (once I can copy the contents of/home/gregory/whatever that matter, I intent to wipe the laptop and/or "clean" install without encryption)... So how do I do that?

rokytnji · 12-12-2015, 10:20 AM

Try

Code:

gksu nautilus

to read

Quote:

You can now view your data in /tmp/disk.

Gregory.Opera · 12-13-2015, 07:32 AM

So here's what I did...p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height* Login with the “Try Ubuntu” option.
* There is an storage drive icon shown on the Launcher, with padlock in lower-right corner of this icon; the storage drive is named “500GB Encrypted”.
I enabled Universe repository via Settings, and installed gksu via Terminal.
* Open drive via the Launcher, then typed the decryption password.
* The name on the Launcher changes to 483GB Volume.
* I open Terminal and enter "gksu nautilus".
* Files (Nautilus) opens.
* An error message appears:

Code:

Oops! Something went wrong.
 Unable to create a required folder. Please create the following folder, or set permissions such that it can be created:
 /root/.config/nautilus

* I click "OK".
* I click the storage drive – now named “b5fa5bf5-ed69-48b9-8abd-757cdcc95ac6” in Files (Nautilus).
* I navigate to /Home/gregoryopera.
* There are just two icons are shown therein: "Access-Your-Private-Data.desktop" and "ReadMe.txt".
* ReadMe.txt says (inside):

Code:

THIS DIRECTORY HAS BEEN UNMOUNTED TO PROTECT YOUR DATA. 
  
 From the graphical desktop, click on: 
  "Access Your Private Data" 
  
 or 
  
 From the command line, run: 
  ecryptfs-mount-private

* Clicking “Access-Your-Private-Data.desktop” causes a Terminal window to flash on-screen and then disappear just as quickly.
* Entering the Terminal command above shows:

Code:

ERROR: Encrypted private directory is not setup properly

rokytnji · 12-13-2015, 02:49 PM

Quote:

ERROR: Encrypted private directory is not setup properly

Pretty damn vague if you asked me. Sounds like a chromeos or windowish error to me.

Anyways. From what I can tell?

Quote:

click the storage drive – now named “b5fa5bf5-ed69-48b9-8abd-757cdcc95ac6” in Files (Nautilus).

The long number starting with b5f sounds like a UUID number for a partition to me.
Example off my laptop (not Ubuntu, not Encrypted, no nautilus on my laptop)

Code:

harry@biker:~
$ sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: LABEL="/home" UUID="b52ee9d0-2423-4496-8103-17e27d18058a" TYPE="ext3" PARTUUID="4322667d-01"
/dev/sda2: LABEL="antiX15root" UUID="e9cd9ed3-d324-4c99-9172-8a1eea6ca80d" TYPE="ext3" PARTUUID="4322667d-02"

Quote:

Oops! Something went wrong.
Unable to create a required folder. Please create the following folder, or set permissions such that it can be created:
/root/.config/nautilus

Have you tried making a nautilus folder in /root/.config to fix this error yet. I'll poke around and see what is in mine.

Code:

harry@biker:~
$ cd /root/.config
bash: cd: /root/.config: Permission denied
harry@biker:~
$ su
Password: 
root@biker:/home/harry# cd /root/.config
root@biker:~/.config# ls
geany	 rox.sourceforge.net	  Trolltech.conf
gtk-3.0  roxterm.sourceforge.net  yad.conf

See. I left the permission error in there so you can understand the command line a little better.
So now I am going to make a nautilus folder (even though I do not need one)

Code:

root@biker:~/.config# mkdir nautilus
root@biker:~/.config# ls
geany	 nautilus	      roxterm.sourceforge.net  yad.conf
gtk-3.0  rox.sourceforge.net  Trolltech.conf

See. Now I have a nautilus folder in /root/.config where no nautilus folder was before.
The encryption not setup correctly error? Sorry. That message is about as clear as "Icecream has no bones".
Saying it's broke but not saying why it is broke.
So I cannot help with that.

jkwilborn · 12-22-2015, 07:26 AM

Cyba.Cowboy, I have had a similar problem and I know you must let the crypt disk partitions mount. So don't press 's', wait for it to get around to mounting. Only use 's' if you don't need to use that drive. You should see the dots moving under Ubuntu boot while it's waiting. I have waited up to about 30 seconds for it to mount and I don't know the actual problem.

Did you save the encryption header of your disks? This is a safe move as other software can corrupt this header, where all of your encryption information is stored. Here is a link to wiki (archlinux) but it's about encryption:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...ice_encryption

About 60 percent down there is a heading "Backup using cryptsetup". Something like the following.

cryptsetup luksHeaderBackup /dev/<device> --header-backup-file /mnt/<backup>/<file>.img

Question, Does the encryption advise you that your passphrase is OK? If not you may have a damaged header, which I understand is fatal (for data recovery) if you can't restore it, from another device.

You may end up doing a re-install to get it back up and running.

Keep in touch..

Jack