Failed to mount /boot - emergency mode not working
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Failed to mount /boot - emergency mode not working
Hello! I'm running an Arch system (installed with Anarchy Installer). It has been running mostly smoothly for a couple of years, but now I've stubmbled into a series of problems.
First, the system got stuck in the startup (the next day after an update). I've had a similar problem before, so I thought I knew what to do. I booted a live USB (Xubuntu), chrooted to my Arch and updated everything.
After that came the current problem. When I try to start the computer, it says after a while "Failed to mount /boot". After that it goes to emergency mode. There I am supposed to log in with the root password. I tried that once and then, after not figuring out what to do there, tried rebooting. It still goes to the emergency mode with the same error message, but now I can't even log in to the emergency mode anymore. The computer doesn't react to anything, not to writing the password, not to pressing ctrl+D which is supposed to "continue", not to pressing anything else (but I can shut it down with the power button, of course). The cursor blinks so I don't think the system is completely stuck, and also the keyboard should work fine.
It still goes to the emergency mode with the same error message, but now I can't even log in to the emergency mode anymore. The computer doesn't react to anything, not to writing the password, not to pressing ctrl+D which is supposed to "continue", not to pressing anything else (but I can shut it down with the power button, of course). The cursor blinks so I don't think the system is completely stuck, and also the keyboard should work fine.
What should I try to do next?
I will speculate that your Kernel and/or initrd are not loading because of all the updating. You don't give us much to go on, so if you're not reinstalling and want to rescue this, post the output of
lsblk
sudo gdisk -l /dev/sda
or /dev/<whatever your main hard drive is called>. Also give us what you know about your boot loader configuration.
Last edited by business_kid; 04-23-2024 at 12:00 PM.
At what point do you get the 'failed to mount boot' error message?
Do you have a separate boot partition?
Is this an EFI install?
Do you have only one physical drive connected?
Is Arch the only OS installed?
Curiosity, if you are using Arch, why do you not have a USB/DVD of a 'live' Arch?
Try replacing the storage with a new drive and installing ARCH (or Manjaro) and then restore your personal data from your backup.
You, DO have a backup; right?
Everything important is on Dropbox, but other than that, I don't have any proper system backup. So, considering that, reinstalling the system sounds like a rather drastic solution, and I would prefer trying something else first.
Quote:
Originally Posted by business_kid
I will speculate that your Kernel and/or initrd are not loading because of all the updating. You don't give us much to go on, so if you're not reinstalling and want to rescue this, post the output of
lsblk
sudo gdisk -l /dev/sda
or /dev/<whatever your main hard drive is called>. Also give us what you know about your boot loader configuration.
Here's the output of those commands:
Code:
xubuntu@xubuntu:~/Desktop$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
loop0 7:0 0 2,1G 1 loop /rofs
loop1 7:1 0 4K 1 loop /snap/bare/5
loop2 7:2 0 62M 1 loop /snap/core20/1587
loop3 7:3 0 400,8M 1 loop /snap/gnome-3-38-2004/112
loop4 7:4 0 163,3M 1 loop /snap/firefox/1635
loop5 7:5 0 91,7M 1 loop /snap/gtk-common-themes/1535
loop6 7:6 0 47M 1 loop /snap/snapd/16292
sda 8:0 1 14,4G 0 disk
└─sda1 8:1 1 14,4G 0 part /cdrom
nvme0n1 259:0 0 476,9G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 260M 0 part
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 16M 0 part
├─nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 475,7G 0 part
└─nvme0n1p4 259:4 0 1000M 0 part
nvme1n1 259:5 0 1,8T 0 disk
├─nvme1n1p1 259:6 0 511M 0 part
├─nvme1n1p2 259:7 0 1,8T 0 part
└─nvme1n1p3 259:8 0 1G 0 part
xubuntu@xubuntu:~/Desktop$ sudo gdisk -l /dev/nvme1n1
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.8
Partition table scan:
MBR: protective
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present
Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/nvme1n1: 3907029168 sectors, 1.8 TiB
Model: KINGSTON SNVS2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512/512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): D1E4C90D-7CF7-4D06-A446-F682820808BF
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 3907029134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 4061 sectors (2.0 MiB)
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 1048576 511.0 MiB EF00 EFI system partition
2 3147776 3907029134 1.8 TiB 8300 Linux filesystem
3 1050624 3147775 1024.0 MiB 8200 Linux swap
About the boot loader, I use GRUB. I don't think I have changed much from the default configuration, only changed the background image and IIRC done something to make it show also the Windows I have on another SSD.
Quote:
Originally Posted by yancek
At what point do you get the 'failed to mount boot' error message?
Do you have a separate boot partition?
Is this an EFI install?
Do you have only one physical drive connected?
Is Arch the only OS installed?
Curiosity, if you are using Arch, why do you not have a USB/DVD of a 'live' Arch?
Here's a picture of the error message and its context: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ggd76...wd651ttoc&dl=0
I don't have a separate boot partition.
As far as I understand, this is an EFI install.
I have two SSDs connected, one for the Arch, one for Windows.
I guess I could say the reason for having a Xubuntu live stick instead of an Arch one is using different systems for different needs. For my main system I want something highly customizable and I am ready to do some tinkering and research for it, whereas the live USB system is mainly for emergency situations, where I want something that simply works out of box.
Another thing I noticed, which I think is related to the mounting issue: when I booted the Xubuntu originally to solve my first problem, I could access the Arch system's files through Thunar. Now that I booted it again to run the commands above, I couldn't access them anymore. Thunar showed the device but wouldn't open it (no error message or anything), and when I ran it as root, it wouldn't even show the device. I didn't try any tricks so as to not break the system further.
Hope these notes help. Please ask me if I can provide any other useful information!
There are no disk labels, which confuses the issue. But try this:
Look for the line in /etc/fstab that has /boot as the mount point. in the options which is the last section on a line before the digits, insert the word 'noauto' before the other options. There are no spaces there, but comments between options (e.g. noauto,defaults).
That should kill your error. You won't be able to upgrade like that, but it should boot. It will at least be interesting to see what goes wrong next . Also post the output of
Code:
ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/
Last edited by business_kid; 04-25-2024 at 07:48 AM.
There are no disk labels, which confuses the issue. But try this:
Look for the line in /etc/fstab that has /boot as the mount point. in the options which is the last section on a line before the digits, insert the word 'noauto' before the other options. There are no spaces there, but comments between options (e.g. noauto,defaults).
That should kill your error. You won't be able to upgrade like that, but it should boot. It will at least be interesting to see what goes wrong next . Also post the output of
(Huhti is short for huhtikuu, meaning April in Finnish.)
I thought I couldn't edit the /etc/fstab, because yesterday I didn't have access to the files on the SSD, but now I do again, for some reason. So, I changed it. Arch now boots up to the LightDM login screen and then freezes. The mouse cursor doesn't move, the text cursor in the password field stops blinking after a moment, and even before that I can't write my password. Also, it only appears on the built-in screen of my laptop, not recognizing any of the other connected screens.
Here we are, 7 posts and we still haven't got a decent idea about your box or what ails it. Your problem in the subject has been bypassed, but worse ones are turning up. There's no end in sight.
I'm driven to thinking Arch is one step too far for you, and that you really need another OS. Arch was fine when disks were tiny, but you can't buy tiny disks any more.
A Debian install is about 6G. Take your pick, format the partitions ext4, and no exotic filesystems and they'll set up the system for you. If you want to learn linux, do an LFS.
In the image in the link from your initial post it shows a message to "See systemctl status boot mount". What was the result of running that command? The line immediately below that reads "Dependency failed for local file system". Just above these lines a filesystem check was done on the EFI partition for the Linux drive which did not indicate any problems. Have you done a filesystem checxk on the Linux partitions of that drive?
In the image in the link from your initial post it shows a message to "See systemctl status boot mount". What was the result of running that command?
I can't run that in the emergency mode, as the emergency mode doesn't work. Tried instead running it from the live Xubuntu through chroot, and it just said "Running in chroot, ignoring command 'status'".
Quote:
Originally Posted by yancek
Have you done a filesystem checxk on the Linux partitions of that drive?
You indicated earlier that there was an update involved and a message shows a dependency failure. Since you did various things trying to resolve this that we are unaware of it is difficult to suggest anything. You might try the chroot with just: systemctl status. I expect you will get a lot of output with that but it might be useful. Another suggestion if you have not done so already is to do an online search for the dependency failure and include Arch in the search. I don't use Arch or Xubuntu so anything more would just be guessing.
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. Also post the output of 
