Leap 16.0 install fails at dracut emergency shell

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Installing 15.6 to this machine runs normally, installation media in both cases is DVD created with k3b, download checksum matches.

Hardware as seen by Info Center from 15.6 now installed on the machine:
Operating System: openSUSE Leap 15.6
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.11
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.115.0
Qt Version: 5.15.12
Kernel Version: 6.4.0-150600.23.103-default (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 6 × AMD FX™-6300 Six-Core Processor
Memory: 15.5 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD CAICOS

Last messages from dracut:
…still waiting for initqueue hooks
…/dev/disk/by-label/Install-Leap-16.0-x86_64
…/dev/root
and then a warning those do not exist followed by dracut emergency shell.

Normal install, failsafe, nomodeset - no change.

In BIOS, secure boot on or off - no change. Twiddled countless other settings - no change

Journalcontrol shows several lines in red (=error?), mostly about memory addressing, not sure about their meaning or relevance.

Can’t figure out what to try next. Any suggestions?

2

From the dracut shell, what is reported by
lsblk -f
and
blkid

It would be interesting to see whether the installation media is actually being detected.

It would also be worth knowing whether installing from a USB stick behaves differently.

3

Installing from USB: tried once years ago, didn’t work, forgot about it. I need to do some studying on how make a bootable USB, long time since last, forgotten how. SUSE Studio Imagewriter?

I didn’t quite understand " installation media is actually being detected."
The DVD boots normally from BIOS boot selection and the installing seems to start.

lsblk: command not found
blkid: lists hd partitions OK to what I understand, need more details on these?

4

In short: /dev/sda1 to 3 and /dev/sdb.

5

Is /dev/sdb the DVD drive?

What does blkid /dev/sdb report? If is easier capture an image on the phone to post the details here.

Yes, SUSE Studio Imagewriter is a suitable way of writing the Leap 16 ISO to a USB stick if you want to try that route.

https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Live_USB_stick

6

The partition was created with at the 15.6 install on empty disks, apart from sda1 (1G /boot) which was made with GParted (if relevant).

7

/dev/sdb is an empty hd with no filesystem, DVD doesn’t show on blkid

8

That explains the missing /dev/disk/by-label/Install-Leap-16.0-x86_64 (Leap 16 initramfs isn’t seeing the optical media.)

This might be telling…
dmesg | grep -Ei 'sr|cdrom|dvd|ata|ahci'
Also
ls /dev/sr*

9

blkid /dev/sdb:
PTUUID=“b0112f48-961b-42c8-82ca-2b5271f059a8” PTTYPE=“gpt”

10

Ok, the empty GPT-formatted hard disk, not the DVD.

11

Is the install program getting confused because /sdb has no filesystem?

12

No, it’s looking for the DVD filesystem.

You didn’t run the “dmesg” or “ls” commands asked for earlier?

13

Finding the keys take some time…
ls /dev/sr* : no such file
dmesg | grep -Ei ‘sr|cdrom|dvd|ata|ahci’ - this needs a photo, it will a few minute to get my gear ready

14

dmesg
dmesg1920×1884 421 KB

15

There’s no optical-drive detection in that dmesg output. The Leap 16 kernel isn’t detecting the DVD drive, even though the firmware can boot from it.

Honestly, I would try the USB approach.

16

I see the hard disks here but nothing telling the DVD is there…?

17

OK, trying that next. It may take a while. Thanks so far, I will post the results.

18

Yes, the kernel isn’t able to recognise the device for some reason. It might be possible that a grub boot parameter could help but it might just be a driver issue. Let’s see what others can advise here.

19

I haven’t fiddled much with grub, so I haven’t a clue what to tell it.

20

??!! Stick USB in, boot - and, bang, it’s there.

Thanks a lot!!

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