"not a valid root device"

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Trying to install 42.3 from DVD, but getting message “not a valid root device” when trying to boot after installation. I’ve tried a number of different things, so I may have corrupted something somewhere.

I’m now at the grub prompt, but I’m confused by what I see. When I do ‘ls (hd0,3)/@/’ (what I believe is the root partition), I’m not seeing all the subdirectories I expect. I’m seeing just:

boot/ srv/ usr/ opt/ .snapshots/ etc/ var/ tmp/

There should be a few more directories, like /bin and /lib, right?

At this point, I have no idea how to proceed. Any advice would be appreciated.

2

If snapshots were enable during installation (default when root partition is large enough), real root is located in another subvolume, immediately after installation full path it is most likely @/.snapshots/1/snapshot.

At this point, I have no idea how to proceed.

Where exactly do you see this error? In GRUB, or later when kernel is loaded? If possible provide picture of it. Did you enable snapshots during installation?

3

Thanks! Yes, I have snapshots enabled. I believe that’s what the installer defaulted to. And I see 2 snapshots, both with what appear to have full root content.

So what’s my next step? Is it as simple as reinstalling with snapshots disabled?

4

You can start with answering my remaining questions :slight_smile:

But it looks like grub2 was installed in non-snapshot mode. Could you check values for the following variables in grub2 CLI:

echo $btrfs_relative_path
echo $btrfs_subvol
echo $root
echo $prefix

Also boot any live distro (Leap DVD in rescue mode would be just as good) and check default subvolume on root:

mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
btrfs sub get-default /mnt

Replace /dev/sda with name of your root disk.

5

I took a different approach to solving the problem. Assuming I messed up the hard disk somehow in an earlier attempt, I tried installing to a fresh disk drive. That seems to have worked. Now, it’s just a matter of restoring my data from the backup and reconfiguring everything.

Cheers! Hans