Seldom do I turn to forums for help. However, I have to make an exception this time.
I'm running Linux Mint 17, and I believe an update occured over the weekend that may have corrupted the startup process.
I have only one OS installed, Linux Mint 17. Grub is installed to the /dev/sda and my root and swap are inside a luks encrypted volume group. I'm not entirely fluent with Grub2 or the initramfs.
In the past, immediately after I selected the appropriate kernel from the Grub menu I would be prompted for the luks password, but now I have had a range of different errors during the startup process. I've copied over a "known good" initrd.img and kernel, but to no avail. Currently, with the "known good" initrd and kernel, I receive the error "No Volume Groups Found."
From what I can gather, the "root=/dev/<root device>" paramter isn't finding the Volume Group because the luks container hasn't been decrypted yet. Which then causes the boot process to stall out with the error.
I've looked another computer [where i copied the "known good" initrd and kernel] with the same distrubution and luks/lvm/grub setup, and no where in that particular PC do I see where the grub.cfg or crypttab is recognizing the luks container and whether to ask for a password or not at boot.
I want to believe the issue lies in Grub, but I'm not sure. I've attached a copy of the BootInfo Script if it's of any help.
Code:
Boot Info Script 0.61 [1 April 2012]
============================= Boot Info Summary: ===============================
=> No boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda.
sda1: __________________________________________________________________________
File system: vfat
Boot sector type: FAT32
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Mounting failed: mount: /dev/sda1 already mounted or sda1 busy
sda2: __________________________________________________________________________
File system: ext2
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Mounting failed: mount: /dev/sda1 already mounted or sda1 busy
mount: /dev/sda2 already mounted or sda2 busy
sda3: __________________________________________________________________________
File system: crypto_LUKS
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info:
mint-vg-root': _________________________________________________________________
File system:
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info:
Mounting failed: mount: /dev/sda1 already mounted or sda1 busy
mount: /dev/sda2 already mounted or sda2 busy
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mint-vg-swap_1': _______________________________________________________________
File system:
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info:
Mounting failed: mount: /dev/sda1 already mounted or sda1 busy
mount: /dev/sda2 already mounted or sda2 busy
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
============================ Drive/Partition Info: =============================
Drive: sda _____________________________________________________________________
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System
/dev/sda1 1 976,773,167 976,773,167 ee GPT
GUID Partition Table detected.
Partition Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors System
/dev/sda1 2,048 1,050,623 1,048,576 EFI System partition
/dev/sda2 1,050,624 1,550,335 499,712 Data partition (Linux)
/dev/sda3 1,550,336 976,771,071 975,220,736 Data partition (Linux)
"blkid" output: ________________________________________________________________
Device UUID TYPE LABEL
/dev/loop0 squashfs
/dev/mapper/luks-fab8eaaf-8701-426e-b903-e454ddda4bd6 sDqaA9-cM9g-jLPG-pGqK-Iu5U-S7oL-SpnP5P LVM2_member
/dev/mapper/mint--vg-root e5e107c1-7c72-496a-89dd-0c8052acf3c8 ext4
/dev/sda1 C39E-4ABE vfat
/dev/sda2 ea55458c-cee4-4b02-9e3c-872a6f4aa553 ext2
/dev/sda3 fab8eaaf-8701-426e-b903-e454ddda4bd6 crypto_LUKS
/dev/sr0 iso9660 Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon 64-bit
========================= "ls -R /dev/mapper/" output: =========================
/dev/mapper:
control
luks-fab8eaaf-8701-426e-b903-e454ddda4bd6
mint--vg-root
mint--vg-swap_1
================================ Mount points: =================================
Device Mount_Point Type Options
/dev/disk/by-uuid/fab8eaaf-8701-426e-b903-e454ddda4bd6 ext4 rw,errors=remount-ro (0)
======================== Unknown MBRs/Boot Sectors/etc: ========================
Unknown BootLoader on sda3
00000000 4c 55 4b 53 ba be 00 01 61 65 73 00 00 00 00 00 |LUKS....aes.....|
00000010 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000020 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 78 74 73 2d 70 6c 61 69 |........xts-plai|
00000030 6e 36 34 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |n64.............|
00000040 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 73 68 61 31 00 00 00 00 |........sha1....|
00000050 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000060 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 40 |...............@|
00000070 92 04 6a 31 55 ab 77 84 7e 12 7b a2 d8 bc b4 18 |..j1U.w.~.{.....|
00000080 b8 d7 f3 90 d9 fc 14 12 70 fc 39 30 3a 2b 60 a8 |........p.90:+`.|
00000090 54 8d 9b 5e 5f 57 87 2b c4 ee 8a 5c 8c c1 60 15 |T..^_W.+...\..`.|
000000a0 98 53 11 c3 00 00 f6 18 66 61 62 38 65 61 61 66 |.S......fab8eaaf|
000000b0 2d 38 37 30 31 2d 34 32 36 65 2d 62 39 30 33 2d |-8701-426e-b903-|
000000c0 65 34 35 34 64 64 64 61 34 62 64 36 00 00 00 00 |e454ddda4bd6....|
000000d0 00 ac 71 f3 00 03 e4 03 0a 4a 32 b1 2f 87 b6 ae |..q......J2./...|
000000e0 5f a1 09 1f 75 e8 bc aa d2 c5 6d 06 9d 05 db 7d |_...u.....m....}|
000000f0 61 cc df c0 c2 9a cc c1 00 00 00 08 00 00 0f a0 |a...............|
00000100 00 00 de ad 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000110 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000120 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 0f a0 |................|
00000130 00 00 de ad 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000140 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000150 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 f8 00 00 0f a0 |................|
00000160 00 00 de ad 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000170 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000180 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 05 f0 00 00 0f a0 |................|
00000190 00 00 de ad 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
000001a0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
000001b0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 07 e8 00 00 0f a0 |................|
000001c0 00 00 de ad 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
000001d0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
000001e0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 09 e0 00 00 0f a0 |................|
000001f0 00 00 de ad 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000200
Unknown BootLoader on mint-vg-root'
Unknown BootLoader on mint-vg-swap_1'
=============================== StdErr Messages: ===============================
skip_dev_dir: Couldn't split up device name mint-vg-root'
Volume group name mint-vg-root' has invalid characters
Skipping volume group mint-vg-root'
skip_dev_dir: Couldn't split up device name mint-vg-root'
Volume group name mint-vg-root' has invalid characters
Skipping volume group mint-vg-root'
skip_dev_dir: Couldn't split up device name mint-vg-root'
Volume group name mint-vg-root' has invalid characters
Skipping volume group mint-vg-root'
hexdump: /dev/mapper/mint-vg-root': No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/mapper/mint-vg-root': No such file or directory
skip_dev_dir: Couldn't split up device name mint-vg-swap_1'
Volume group name mint-vg-swap_1' has invalid characters
Skipping volume group mint-vg-swap_1'
skip_dev_dir: Couldn't split up device name mint-vg-swap_1'
Volume group name mint-vg-swap_1' has invalid characters
Skipping volume group mint-vg-swap_1'
skip_dev_dir: Couldn't split up device name mint-vg-swap_1'
Volume group name mint-vg-swap_1' has invalid characters
Skipping volume group mint-vg-swap_1'
hexdump: /dev/mapper/mint-vg-swap_1': No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/mapper/mint-vg-swap_1': No such file or directory