Unable to boot withou a particular USB drive being mounted

After years of running 15.2 (and prior to that 15 and others), and because I had dvds with 15.3 and 15.4, I recently ‘upgraded’ to 15.4 via 15.3. It’s an ancient Toshiba Satellite C660 that was handed down to me with Windows 7. Windows still boots ok.

I cannot boot 15.4 without a particular usb drive being inserted - otherwise grub emergency. Perhaps some kind person can tell me how to get rid of this requirement?
I used to use this usb drive (and still might) as an occasional samba ‘scratch pad’ in my wifi router. Why 15.4 should think that this device needs to be mounted before it can boot makes no sense to me.
I have another question about how 15.4 treats usbs, but one thing at a time.

Whatever skills I may have,they appear to lie somewhere other than linux.
I’m also off-grid - which means my online presence may be partly weather dependent.
Thank you all.

Operating System: openSUSE Leap 15.4
KDE Plasma Version: 5.24.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.90.0
Qt Version: 5.15.2
Kernel Version: 5.14.21-150400.24.88-default (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 4 × Intel® Core™ i3 CPU M 370 @ 2.40GHz
Memory: 5.6 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Mesa DRI Intel® HD Graphics

localhost:~ # fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 596.17 GiB, 640135028736 bytes, 1250263728 sectors
Disk model: TOSHIBA MK6475GS
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x56e67e82

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 * 2048 821247 819200 400M 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sda2 821248 339798015 338976768 161.6G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 339798016 1250263039 910465024 434.1G f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sda5 339800064 352401407 12601344 6G 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 436291584 1250263039 813971456 388.1G 83 Linux
localhost:~ # fdisk -l /dev/sdc
Disk /dev/sdc: 7.46 GiB, 8011120640 bytes, 15646720 sectors
Disk model: USB DISK 2.0
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xc3072e18

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1 8064 15646719 15638656 7.5G c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Show us content of /etc/fstab and input/output from lsblk -f while that USB stick is attached.

Please always provide input/output complete, and contain it within formatting tags that preserve the original formatting in plain monospace text. ~~~ on prior and subsequent lines can do this. Alternatively, using the PRE icon </> above the input window can do the same thing.

localhost:~ # cat /etc/fstab
UUID=5efe6aad-4bd2-4bab-9780-47392075965f  /                       btrfs  defaults                      0  0
UUID=5efe6aad-4bd2-4bab-9780-47392075965f  /var                    btrfs  subvol=/@/var                 0  0
UUID=5efe6aad-4bd2-4bab-9780-47392075965f  /usr/local              btrfs  subvol=/@/usr/local           0  0
UUID=5efe6aad-4bd2-4bab-9780-47392075965f  /tmp                    btrfs  subvol=/@/tmp                 0  0
UUID=5efe6aad-4bd2-4bab-9780-47392075965f  /srv                    btrfs  subvol=/@/srv                 0  0
UUID=5efe6aad-4bd2-4bab-9780-47392075965f  /root                   btrfs  subvol=/@/root                0  0
UUID=5efe6aad-4bd2-4bab-9780-47392075965f  /opt                    btrfs  subvol=/@/opt                 0  0
UUID=5efe6aad-4bd2-4bab-9780-47392075965f  /home                   btrfs  subvol=/@/home                0  0
UUID=5efe6aad-4bd2-4bab-9780-47392075965f  /boot/grub2/x86_64-efi  btrfs  subvol=/@/boot/grub2/x86_64-efi  0  0
UUID=5efe6aad-4bd2-4bab-9780-47392075965f  /boot/grub2/i386-pc     btrfs  subvol=/@/boot/grub2/i386-pc  0  0
UUID=5e20e6c8-6b5f-4869-b933-bae19a0136b6  swap                    swap   defaults                      0  0
UUID=5efe6aad-4bd2-4bab-9780-47392075965f  /.snapshots             btrfs  subvol=/@/.snapshots          0  0
UUID=35C1-73A6                             /run/media/bcsl/USB2    vfat   iocharset=utf8                0  0
localhost:~ # lsblk -f
NAME  FSTYPE FSVER LABEL  UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
loop0 squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/core18/2785
loop1 squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/gaming-graphics-core22/113
loop2 squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/core22/858
loop3 squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/194
loop4 squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/core18/2790
loop5 squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/snapd/19993
loop6 squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/core22/864
loop7 squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/gaming-graphics-core22/117
loop8 squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/b2/30
loop9 squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/core/16202
loop10
      squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/bare/5
loop11
      squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/b2/32
loop12
      squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/core/16091
loop13
      squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/gnome-42-2204/132
loop14
      squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/198
loop15
      squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/gnome-42-2204/141
loop16
      squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/snapd/20092
loop17
      squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/vitomu/5
loop18
      squash 4.0                                                     0   100% /snap/vitomu/6
sda                                                                           
├─sda1
│     ntfs         SYSTEM 025A987E5A987061                                    
├─sda2
│     ntfs         WINDOWS
│                         6A4A9D0A4A9CD3E3                                    
├─sda3
│                                                                             
├─sda5
│     swap   1            5e20e6c8-6b5f-4869-b933-bae19a0136b6                [SWAP]
└─sda6
      btrfs               5efe6aad-4bd2-4bab-9780-47392075965f  338.6G    12% /home
                                                                              /tmp
                                                                              /boot/grub2/x86_64-efi
                                                                              /boot/grub2/i386-pc
                                                                              /var
                                                                              /root
                                                                              /srv
                                                                              /usr/local
                                                                              /opt
                                                                              /.snapshots
                                                                              /
sdb                                                                           
sdc                                                                           
└─sdc1
      vfat   FAT32 USB2   35C1-73A6                               7.4G     0% /run/media/bcsl/USB2
sr0                                                                           
localhost:~ # 


You had that USB installed when grub and mkinitrd were ran and it is now in the grub boot code. I had this when I installed from a USB drive. This is how I fixed mine.

Also mkintrd is depreciated and probably is not there anymore - the powers that be removed it.

The cure is to boot up remove the USB drive and make it rebuild the boot code as root or use sudu:

grub2-install /dev/sda (or what ever is the root drive)
and

dracut --regenerate-all --force (the mkinitrd replacement command)

This line in the fstab says mount the USB drive - put a # in from to make it ignored

#UUID=35C1-73A6 /run/media/bcsl/USB2 vfat iocharset=utf8

1 Like

Thank you very much. It will be another day before I can try as you suggest. I’ll relay how that goes in due course.

@mrmazda Thank you for your note about formatting. I was unaware: my apologies.
@larryr  I commented out the offending usb stick entry in fstab and re-booted from scratch. That all worked.Thank you. Was there anything else I should do - along the lines of your first reply?

I might just add the following :- That usb did used to have a bootable operating system, but it failed to boot in the distant past and I had concluded that the data had become corrupted or otherwise unusable. Before discarding it, I thought I would reformat it just to see whether it was still usable. It was, and, as mentioned, it found a slot in my wifi hub. Prior to presenting my problem to the forum, I made various attempts to solve it myself. In the course of that, I found that the stick had the boot flag set. I toggled that off. I cannot imagine why, in the course of upgrading from 15.2 through 15.3 to 15.4, I would have had that plugged into the laptop. Is it conceivable that during these upgrades that the system saw a bootable device on the router? Or does this stray too far into the realms of fantasy?

Again, as mentioned earlier, I had another problem with the way 15.4 was treating another usb device. I expect you'll correct me if this is the wrong thread to elaborate.

I plug the device in:-

Password: 
localhost:~ # lsblk -f /dev/sdc
NAME   FSTYPE   FSVER LABEL        UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sdc                                                                                    
├─sdc1 vfat     FAT32 KNOPPIX      DB23-5750                             403.1M    92% /run/media/bcsl/KNOPPIX
└─sdc2 reiserfs JR    KNOPPIX-DATA 0be07d78-3fb4-4fef-9bab-cd6e7ae94bbf                
localhost:~ # 

localhost:~ # parted /dev/sdc print
Model: SanDisk Extreme SSD (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
 1      1049kB  5106MB  5104MB  primary  fat32        boot, lba, type=0c
 2      5106MB  250GB   245GB   primary  reiserfs     type=83

localhost:~ # 


With 15.2 I was able to mount (open with dolphin) KNOPPIX-DATA and use rsync to copy data from the laptop. I cannot mount this partition under 15.4.

If I boot the device everything looks normal What has changed?

I see I have a way to go before I understand how this formatting works.

openSUSE installations by default no longer support reiserfs, as (IIRC) it no longer had any upstream maintainer.

Only the copy & paste content should be between preformatted text markers, not your narrative.

Thank you.
You may take it that I am suitably embarrassed about the formatting.