Hy!
TW KDE 64bit plain vanilla here. Did zypper dup without errors noted and rebooted, afterwards I ended here
https://paste.opensuse.org/bdf53e0b
GPT1 is most likely /boot and GPT2 is most likely / I guess.
Can’t proceed to repair grub, as the file system of /boot is “unknown”, i.e. damaged?
No idea why this small SSD is GPT and why there is no dedicated /home partition (as I always do).
Any ideas how to proceed? 
EFI or legacy BIOS?
You cannot tell much from that output.
Recently grub updated to version 2.06 (previously was 2.04) – in Tumbleweed.
This is the kind of error you can get if there is a version mismatch between the grub installed in a boot sector and the grub installed under “/boot/grub2” .
The “unknown” might only mean that grub has been unable to identify the file system because of the first failure. The file system might not be damaged. You need to boot rescue media to check that.
From what is shown there, you cannot tell whether there is a “/home”.
Boot into a rescue or live system and run bootinfoscript: https://github.com/arvidjaar/bootinfoscript
I always use legacy…
Booted TW from USB-stick and ran script:
https://paste.opensuse.org/8342306b
Apparently sda is the failing SSD…
You have two Tumbleweed installations (on sda and sdb) and both sda and sdb are theoretically bootable. Your BIOS is most probably configured to boot from sda; sda1 is BIOS boot partition.
We cannot know which of two installations is the correct one. Boot from any live medium, mount TW partition where you performed update mentioned in original post and show output of
cat /etc/default/grub_installdevice
lsblk -f
/dev/sda is the Kingston SSD with the initial install, while /dev/sdb is the Sandisk USB-stick currently booted.
I mounted /dev/sda2 at /mnt and have now:
usser@dell5usb:/mnt/etc/default> cat grub_installdevice
/dev/sda
activate
and
usser@dell5usb:/mnt/etc/default> lsblk -f
NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINT
sda
├─sda1
└─sda2 ext4 1.0 46aadab1-9ea2-4621-a190-e4ca7a46c17b 16.5G 35% /mnt
sdb
├─sdb1 ext4 1.0 1c45fbf6-2bf2-40aa-a3f2-4e4f1f8ea0f3 6.8G 60% /
├─sdb2 ext4 1.0 c1e8f7c4-ca48-437d-82c9-e167c790df30 3.6G 23% /home
└─sdb3 swap 1 e91bb70b-bceb-40da-8f1c-f28815bcb270
That looks OK (assuming sda is the only disk normally). What is bootloader set to (grep LOADER /etc/sysconfig/bootloader)?
There is normally a secondary HDD drive, which I unplugged in the very beginning of the debugging to exclude this potential source of errors. Should I plug it in now again?
(I wonder where grub knows disks by /dev/sdX names in this very, very early stage of the boot process… but tbh I have no idea of the grub thing at all).
usser@dell5usb:/mnt/etc/sysconfig> grep LOADER bootloader
LOADER_TYPE="grub2"
If it’s listed in fstab I’d definitely say yes!
I have had a similar issue some time ago. After unplugging an external backup drive which I have added to /etc/fstab for more convenience, system would only boot to rescue mode, just as yours.
Worth a try at least, I think.
Huh? So you changed configuration which means we are now chasing wild goose. When you have a problem you need to present evidences of this problem, not of something entirely different.
Should I plug it in now again?
Educated guess is this other disk is actually /dev/sda so the last grub update installed bootloader on this disk. This is sort of confirmed by the fact that grub.cfg sets default root to hd1, which means disk with /boot/grub2 is seen as the second disk. So yes, plugging it in may allow you to boot. Again, it depends on BIOS settings.
I wonder where grub knows disks by /dev/sdX names in this very, very early stage of the boot process
grub does not. This file is for tools that install grub. And yes, /dev/sda is rather poor choice because it does not unambiguously identify disk. Better would be by-id reference.
As I wrote, I unplugged the additional HDD only AFTER the error occured. Plugging it in again doesn’t help anything, I end up with the very same error as in the opening post.
How to proceed? Fresh install?
Ok, now I got it. Changed the boot order in BIOS and TW comes up as normal. What will happen after next update? omg…
You need no fresh install. You may try to convert disks from dos to gpt and convert grub from i386-pc to x86_64-efi. I did so for linux systems: https://karlmistelberger.wordpress.com/2018/05/15/fruehjahsputz/ One I made this change maintenance was easy.
Apparently the SSD is GPT (no idea why, I thought that’s only necessary for large disks…) and I’m not sure the mobo supports EFI (older Gigabyte Celeron miniITX board iirc).
Would be nice to know how to fix this “I install grub whereever I want” behaviour for TW updates. I have remote machines that could be severely harmed by such an event.
inxi tells models:
**erlangen:~ #** inxi -zmF
**System: Kernel:** 5.13.1-1-default x86_64 **bits:** 64 **Console:** tty pts/1 **Distro:** openSUSE Tumbleweed 20210716
**Machine: Type:** Desktop **Mobo:** ASRock **model:** Z170 Pro4S **serial:** <filter> **UEFI:** American Megatrends **v:** P3.50 **date:** 06/23/2016
**Memory: RAM:** **total:** 31.18 GiB **used:** 9.02 GiB (28.9%)
**Array-1:** **capacity:** 64 GiB **slots:** 4 **EC:** None
**Device-1:** ChannelA-DIMM0 **size:** No Module Installed
**Device-2:** ChannelA-DIMM1 **size:** 16 GiB **speed:** 2133 MT/s
**Device-3:** ChannelB-DIMM0 **size:** No Module Installed
**Device-4:** ChannelB-DIMM1 **size:** 16 GiB **speed:** 2133 MT/s
**CPU: Info:** Quad Core **model:** Intel Core i7-6700K **bits:** 64 **type:** MT MCP **cache:** **L2:** 8 MiB
**Speed:** 3507 MHz **min/max:** 800/4200 MHz **Core speeds (MHz):** **1:** 3507 **2:** 4138 **3:** 1313 **4:** 800 **5:** 800 **6:** 2310 **7:** 3801
**8:** 800
**Graphics: Device-1:** AMD Lexa PRO [Radeon 540/540X/550/550X / RX 540X/550/550X] **driver:** amdgpu **v:** kernel
**Display:** **server:** X.Org 1.20.12 **driver:** **loaded:** amdgpu,ati **unloaded:** fbdev,modesetting,vesa
**resolution:** 3840x2160~60Hz
**OpenGL:** **renderer:** Radeon RX550/550 Series (POLARIS12 DRM 3.41.0 5.13.1-1-default LLVM 12.0.0) **v:** 4.6 Mesa 21.1.4
**Audio: Device-1:** Intel 100 Series/C230 Series Family HD Audio **driver:** snd_hda_intel
**Device-2:** AMD Baffin HDMI/DP Audio [Radeon RX 550 640SP / RX 560/560X] **driver:** snd_hda_intel
**Sound Server-1:** ALSA **v:** k5.13.1-1-default **running:** yes
**Sound Server-2:** PulseAudio **v:** 14.2-rebootstrapped **running:** yes
**Network: Device-1:** Intel Ethernet I219-V **driver:** e1000e
**IF:** enp0s31f6 **state:** up **speed:** 1000 Mbps **duplex:** full **mac:** <filter>
**Drives: Local Storage:** **total:** 6.38 TiB **used:** 3.14 TiB (49.3%)
**ID-1:** /dev/nvme0n1 **vendor:** Samsung **model:** SSD 950 PRO 512GB **size:** 476.94 GiB
**ID-2:** /dev/sda **vendor:** Crucial **model:** CT2000BX500SSD1 **size:** 1.82 TiB
**ID-3:** /dev/sdb **vendor:** Western Digital **model:** WD40EZRX-22SPEB0 **size:** 3.64 TiB
**ID-4:** /dev/sdc **vendor:** Samsung **model:** SSD 850 EVO 500GB **size:** 465.76 GiB
**Partition: ID-1:** / **size:** 51.69 GiB **used:** 23.44 GiB (45.3%) **fs:** btrfs **dev:** /dev/nvme0n1p3
**ID-2:** /boot/efi **size:** 99.8 MiB **used:** 8.3 MiB (8.3%) **fs:** vfat **dev:** /dev/nvme0n1p1
**ID-3:** /home **size:** 406.34 GiB **used:** 280.63 GiB (69.1%) **fs:** ext4 **dev:** /dev/nvme0n1p4
**ID-4:** /opt **size:** 51.69 GiB **used:** 23.44 GiB (45.3%) **fs:** btrfs **dev:** /dev/nvme0n1p3
**ID-5:** /var **size:** 51.69 GiB **used:** 23.44 GiB (45.3%) **fs:** btrfs **dev:** /dev/nvme0n1p3
**Swap: Alert:** No Swap data was found.
**Sensors: System Temperatures:** **cpu:** 31.0 C **mobo:** 32.0 C **gpu:** amdgpu **temp:** 51.0 C
**Fan Speeds (RPM):** **fan-1:** 0 **fan-2:** 497 **fan-3:** 0 **fan-4:** 0 **fan-5:** 0 **fan-6:** 0 **gpu:** amdgpu **fan:** 954
**Info: Processes:** 350 **Uptime:** 13h 48m **Shell:** Bash **inxi:** 3.3.03
**erlangen:~ #**
Yes. And you collected diagnostic information AFTER you unplugged additional HDD. And you never mentioned that you had additional HDD before I hinted at it. How do you expect someone to troubleshoot the problem without complete picture?
As I already told you - replace /dev/sda in /etc/default/grub_installdevice with stable device name. Like /dev/disk/by-id/ata-KINGSTON_SS200S330G_50026B72590E11D9 (according to previous BIS results; verify that it actually points to your correct disk). This makes sure grub is always installed on the correct disk. Then run “update-bootloader --reinit”, reboot and change boot order back in BIOS.
Without this modification grub will continue to be installed on “another HDD” as long as this HDD remains /dev/sda. You can theoretically replace /dev/sda with /dev/sdb, and it will work now, but experience shows that after some time users forget about it, add new disks and disk names change …
sudo inxi -zmF
[sudo] password for root:
System: Kernel: 5.13.1-1-default x86_64 bits: 64 Console: tty pts/0
Distro: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20210715
Machine: Type: Other-vm? Mobo: Gigabyte model: N3150ND3V serial: N/A
UEFI-[Legacy]: American Megatrends v: F5a date: 01/19/2018
Memory: RAM: total: 7.67 GiB used: 628.8 MiB (8.0%)
Array-1: capacity: 8 GiB slots: 2 EC: None
Device-1: A1_DIMM0 size: 4 GiB speed: 1600 MT/s
Device-2: A1_DIMM1 size: 4 GiB speed: spec: 65535 MT/s note: check
actual: 1600 MT/s
CPU: Info: Quad Core model: Intel Celeron N3150 bits: 64 type: MCP cache: L2: 1024 KiB
Speed: 1177 MHz min/max: 480/2080 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 640 2: 640 3: 480
4: 480
Graphics: Device-1: Intel Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Integrated
Graphics
driver: i915 v: kernel
Display: server: X.org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa
tty: 96x49
Message: Advanced graphics data unavailable in console for root.
Audio: Device-1: Intel Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series High
Definition Audio
driver: snd_hda_intel
Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.13.1-1-default running: yes
Network: Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8169
IF: enp1s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8169
IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives: Local Storage: total: 959.47 GiB used: 665.86 GiB (69.4%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Kingston model: SS200S330G size: 27.96 GiB
ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Western Digital model: WD10EURX-63C57Y0 size: 931.51 GiB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 27.38 GiB used: 9.36 GiB (34.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
Swap: ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/sdb5
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 26.8 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info: Processes: 136 Uptime: 1h 51m Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Shell: Bash inxi: 3.3.03