Ubuntu Booting Problem

BigAL2006 · 10-30-2006, 06:16 PM

I've recently had trouble booting Ubuntu. Here is what appears on my screen during the boot process:

Mounting: Mounting /dev/hdb1 on /root failed: no such device
Mounting: Mounting /root/dev on /dev.static /dev failed: no such file or directory
Mounting: Mounting /sys on /root/sys failed: no such file or directory
Mounting: Mounting /proc on /root/proc failed: no such file or directory

Target filesystem doesn't have /sbin/init

/bin/sh: can't access tty: job control turned off
#

I am dual booting Windows XP Pro x64 on hd1 and booting Ubuntu on hd2. I'm using the grub that came with Ubuntu. I'm still a newbie and play with Ubuntu whenever I can. The only way I know to fix this is to reinstall the OS. If anyone knows how to fix this problem, Please help!

hero_19873 · 10-30-2006, 07:19 PM

i have the same problem

can any 1 help us

mcmillan · 10-30-2006, 07:42 PM

I'm probably not going to be much help, but if there's issues with things not mounting at boot my first guess would be an issue with /etc/fstab If you could post what's in that file it will probably be helpful. The section of /boot/grub/menu.lst dealing with booting ubuntu might be good to see also.

Since you can't boot into ubuntu you'll need to boot using the liveCD and mount the hard drive from there. If you don't know how to do this it's pretty simple. Once you're booted in the LiveCD open a terminal and type sudo mkdir /mnt/ubuntu (or whatever you want to call the mount point). Then mount it by typing sudo mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt/ubuntu. The files you want will then be in /mnt/ubuntu/etc/fstab and /mnt/ubuntu/boot/grub/menu.lst.

louieb · 11-02-2006, 07:37 AM

Can you boot to windows?
Did you recently update Ubuntu?
Don't remember how many times I have had to reinstall Linux until I learned how to edit my /boot/grub/menu.lst file.
If you can use a live CD (my favorite is Puppy Linux) and post your
/boot/grub/menu.lst
/etc/fstab
also would like to see the output from fdisk -l (ubuntu live cd use sudo fdisk -l)
If its fixable without reinstalling then I can help if you provide the information above.

gnowak · 03-18-2007, 07:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigAL2006

I've recently had trouble booting Ubuntu. Here ....

Target filesystem doesn't have /sbin/init

/bin/sh: can't access tty: job control turned off

I have a similar problem.

1) Can you boot to windows? Yes.

2) Did you recently update Ubuntu? Yes. (I am actually running kubuntu Feisty)

3) grub should be fine.

/boot/grub/menu.lst = http://grn.dk/up/log/menu.lst.txt

/etc/fstab = http://grn.dk/up/log/fstab.txt

fdisk -l: http://grn.dk/up/log/fdisk.txt

Any help would be very appreciated.

Thanks, Grzegorz.

pixellany · 03-18-2007, 09:17 AM

gnowak;

It is much better to start a new thread than to jump into an old one.

If your issue is really similar to the OP, then it is not related to grub.

Please post your exact symptoms and error messages

gnowak · 03-18-2007, 09:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pixellany

gnowak;

It is much better to start a new thread than to jump into an old one.

If your issue is really similar to the OP, then it is not related to grub.

Please post your exact symptoms and error messages

Should I post my symptoms here? Or in a new thread?

Thanks.

phantom_cyph · 03-18-2007, 09:32 AM

Post to which ever forum is closest to your problem, then report the other thread to a moderator to be closed.

gnowak · 03-18-2007, 09:35 AM

Okay, I will do that. I don't know how to close the thread though.

pixellany · 03-18-2007, 10:38 AM

no no no---this IS the other thread.

Just put your info here.....

louieb · 03-19-2007, 04:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gnowak

I have a similar problem.
Any help would be very appreciated.
Thanks, Grzegorz.

You menu.lst uses uuid and your fstab doesn't. Since uuid is not required, try this change to the first Ubuntu entry in your your menu.lst. and see what happens.

change

Code:

kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-12-generic root=UUID=2788b51c-0f80-4201-8303-88f66218ec1f ro quiet splash

to

Code:

kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-12-generic root=/dev/hdb7 ro quiet splash

There is a way to get the uuid by using the ls command by don't remember how. I guess this is one of the reasons feisty is still in alpha.

Just found it. if you want to compare uuid's this will list them:

Code:

ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/

gnowak · 03-19-2007, 10:41 AM

OK, I tried that louieb.. my computer didn't boot at all..

.. but i fixed it with knoppix..

Here is my story, I had dapper drake, which I upgraded to edgy because of restart and boot problems. The problems didn't go away, so I read in another thread that someone had the same problems, but it was not a problem in feisty. At that point my boot had only small bugs.
I upgraded to feisty through aptitude dist-upgrade. Strange things started to happen. I had some serious software RAID problems (I don't want RAID) with mdadm and initrd-tools, why I removed them with apt-get remove. In the past I think I played around with some software RAID, but never got it to work. Things were still strange and I got messages like:

can't access tty; job control turned off
AND
Target filesystem doesn't have /sbin/ini

Which I fixed with apt get install ubuntu-minimal

I still get the message:
udev_db_add_device: unable to create db file : The solution from a bug report is to create the folder, but it didn't work for me.

When my system is booting it sometimes hangs at: starting enterprise volume management system...

This is from my /var/log/boot file:
Mar 15 13:58:56 rcS: * Assembling RAID arrays... ^[[80G^[[74G[^[[31mfail^[[39;49m]

Any ideas?

I am thinking of downgrading to edgy....

Thanks, Grzegorz.

gnowak · 03-24-2007, 05:11 AM

Mkay, I gave up, installed a clean version of edgy, now it works....

Case closed.

medya · 04-27-2007, 09:17 PM

take a look at this

DOTT.EVARISTI · 05-02-2007, 03:37 AM

i had the same problem both in ubuntu 6.10 and kubuntu 7.04,in both cases after installing updates and managing init for faster booting...cos i had very few files and none important and didn't want to bec0me mad in solving the problem i formatted and reinstall kubuntu in this way creating 4 partitions-i suggest to do this way every distro you could have:

1 parttion for swap
1 parttion for root
1 partition for home
1 partition for temp and formatted in fat 32 for sharing files with windows

use partimage for creating boot backup images often and save them in home and in temp partition,every time you have a problem restore the image with partimage with a live rescue cd and you won't have any boot problems and became mad in solving the boot problems..

good luck !