Approx 2 days ago I updated my kernel. Since that happened I am unable to boot my system. The error message is that it’s unable to find /dev/disk/by-id/< … >, it asks me if I want it to fall back on the device, and immediately hangs. I’m not able to enter Y / N to indicate whether it should fall back, and I never end up at a usable shell.
I have tried editing the command line for the boot entry to point to the device by /dev/sda2, and also by /dev/disk/by-path/< … >, which I’ve been able to determine is the same partition, but I receive the same behavior. I’ve also tried with kernel options like broken_modules=ata_piix and rootdelay=[5-10], but the drive doesn’t seem to be accessible at all after the update.
If I boot into a Live CD I’m able to mount the drive and access files properly, so to me it appears that the drive itself is OK, but I’m game to verify that if anyone can suggest how I would do so. Sorry for omitting a few details (exact kernel version, disk id’s / paths, I’m posting from a computer at work today).
Sounds like an incomplete install of the kernel. If so you would need to reinstall/repair the OS.
Note you don’t mount a disk you mount partitions on a disk.
From the CD you may want to run fsck on each partition on the drive. First run fdisk -l so you can lnow the partition layout. Note do not mount them, just run fsck against them. type info fschk or man fschkfor details.
What does your /boot/grub/menu.lst file look like? Does it have /dev/sda2 or /dev/disk/by-path? Does your /etc/fstab have the same device listing?
menu.lst started with the devices as /dev/disk/by-id. I tried /dev/disk/by-path and /dev/sda2 to no effect. fstab contained /dev/disk/by-id as well initially. I have tried similar edits to fstab as I have to menu.lst. The error message reflects whatever I set in menu.lst or what I manually edit the grub entry to be before booting. Changes to fstab do not appear to have any effect.
I seem to be able to modify files normally, so I can make adjustments as necessary.
I can fsck the partitions tonight to verify that everything checks out. So far they seem fine, but I’ll verify that.
That’s unfortunate considering that the kernel update was installed using the system updater applet like I’ve done hundreds of times before. I didn’t do anything different or special this time around.
Well maybe the update was slow and you shutdown or lost connection before it was complete. One of the problems with the updater is that it really does not do an in your face notification that it is done it just changes colors around the edge of the icon.
Thanks for the tip. I’ll definitely check into that for the future. It sounds like right now I’m going to need to try to repair / upgrade my system. I’m downloading the 11.3 dvd right now - hopefully I will be able to salvage from there.
After much chagrin I ended up doing a fresh install of 11.3 and formatting my root partition. My home partition appears to have survived, but I’m getting some quirky behavior in a few places. If I log in as a user that existed on the old system my panel doesn’t have a background in KDE4, for example.
More troubling for me is that my system takes forever to boot at this point. When I boot I a message that says BUG: Unable to handle kernel paging request at address … . The module snd_hda_intel is noted in several places in the error, and the boot process hangs for 3 ~ 5 minutes before proceeding. I do finally reach a desktop, but get no sound. I had sound in 11.2. Output from hwinfo --sound:
On 2010-08-16 18:52, g-d-d-c wrote:
>
> After much chagrin I ended up doing a fresh install of 11.3 and
> formatting my root partition.
And you did this without testing a live first, or installing a small system in an extra partition,
to see if it really runs right in your computer. Now it doesn’t run right. Mmmm… >:-)
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” GM (Elessar))
On 2010-08-13 18:36, g-d-d-c wrote:
>
>> What does your /boot/grub/menu.lst file look like? Does it have
>> /dev/sda2 or /dev/disk/by-path? Does your /etc/fstab have the same
>> device listing?
>
> menu.lst started with the devices as /dev/disk/by-id. I tried
> /dev/disk/by-path and /dev/sda2 to no effect. fstab contained
> /dev/disk/by-id as well initially. I have tried similar edits to fstab
> as I have to menu.lst. The error message reflects whatever I set in
> menu.lst or what I manually edit the grub entry to be before booting.
> Changes to fstab do not appear to have any effect.
The fstab file is not used at that time.
I think your original problem came from a bad “initrd” file. This is repaired from a rescue system,
mounting, chrooting, running “mkinitrd”.
Or using rpm from command line to reinstall the kernel rpms.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” GM (Elessar))