I turned on my laptop running on ubuntu 20.4 LTS this morning and I find the following kernel panic error

4.974048] Initranfs unpacking failed: junk within compressed archive

5.7226651 Failed to execute init (error -2)

5.7230721 Kernel panic- not syncing: Requested init /bin/bash failed (error -2). 5.7237421 CPU: 3 PID: 1 Comm: suapper/0 Mot tainted 5.15.0-83-generic #92 20.04.1-Ubuntu

5.7244661 Hardware name: Hewlett-Packard HP EliteBook 820 G1/1991, BIOS L71 Ver. 01.20 07/28/2011 5.7252771 Call Trace:

5.7254931 <TASK>

5.7256781 dump_stack_lul+0x4a/8x63

5.7260041 dump_stack+0x10/0x16

5.7262951 panic+0x15c/0x334

5.7265651 kernel_execue+0x15d/0x1a8

5.7269111 kernel init+0xe1/0x150

5.72722017 rest init+0x100/0x190

5.7275361 ret from fark+0x22/8x30

5.7278531 </TASK>

5.7280681 Kernel Offset: 0x13600000 from exffffffff81000000 (relocation range: 0xffffffff80000000-0xffffffffbffffffr)

5.7290971--- end Kernel panic- not syncing: Requested init bin/bash failed (error -2).

I was able to edit the grub config to add the
init=/bin/bash
Yet I still don't understand how to fix this.
I need your help guys.

Sounds like corrupted initramfs, you could rebuild it: https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages...itramfs.8.html
However, there must be a reason for this corruption, is the hard drive failing?

1 members found this post helpful.

Yeah, the drive failed.
I had to replace it with a new one.
Thanks