Unknown filesystem type 'reiserfs'

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hi, can anyone help me please.

When I try to boot to OpenSUSE I get the following error during boot-up:

unknown filesystem type ‘reiserfs’
could not mount root filesystem - exiting to /bin/sh
$

This only started happening quite recently - before this I could boot to Linux quite happily.

Please could responses be in very simple terms as I am a complete beginner with Linux.

Thank you
Andy

2

Hello Andy,

can you tell us what you did right before this started happening, specifically did you format your hard drive differently?

To resolve it I would try to boot up off the DVD and reinstall GRUB from the disc, but without specifics I can’t recommend something immediately.

I hope you are enjoying your openSUSE experience so far!

~

3

Hi, thank you for your response.

I’m not aware of having done anything different, I definitely didn’t reformat my hard drive.

I’ll have a go at reinstalling GRUB and see if that helps.

Thanks
Andy

4

Glad to help.

I figure it is GURB that is throwing the error, it wants to see the partition in ext format, but it thinks the partition is in reiserfs.

Post back if the GRUB reinstall fixes the problem,

~

5

> I’m not aware of having done anything different, I definitely didn’t
> reformat my hard drive.

since you also wrote: “This only started happening quite recently -
before this I could boot to Linux quite happily…I am a complete
beginner with Linux.”

i need to ask: how long did you boot this machine to Linux happily
before this started happening?

can you tell us something about the machine…like what kind of
hardware, how long in service, is it a server/laptop/desktop, what
version of what operating system is it using…is it setup to
automatically update and patch…

did you perform the initial install and setup on the machine, or what?

–
palladium

6

This can happen if mkinitrd does not finish properly after a kernel upgrade. Open a terminal window and do:


su -c 'mkinitrd'
su -c 'init 6'

This will create a new initrd, telling the kernel where all the modules, amongst which the reiserfs one, are, then reboot. Please get back here with results.

7

Hi everyone, thanks for all your help.

What I did in the end was an upgrade from CD to Suse 11.1 which is what I had on my system anyway. This reinstalled GRUB and let me boot back to OpenSUSE. So far so good. Next thing was to edit menu.lst to add a boot to Windows, which I have done a couple of times before. What happens now is that when I try to boot to Windows nothing happens, i.e. there is a wait of a couple of seconds and I get taken straight back to GRUB.

I’ll see if I can sort that out as I do want to use Windows sometimes!

Thanks
Andy