I’ve just got back from a course and powered my PC up. After the GRUB menu it start loading up then suddenly;
Waiting 10 secs for device /dev/sda2 ...
ERROR: device '/dev/sda2' not found. Skipping fsck.
ERROR: Unable to find root device '/dev/sda2'.
You are being dropped to a recovery shell
Type 'exit' to try and continue booting
sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
[rootfs /]#
I tried typing ‘exit’ but the keyboard doesn’t seem to be working.
I took the drive out and booted it through an external caddy on my laptop, I managed to type ‘exit’ but it still didn’t work.
I managed to find this solution online but when I boot systemrescuecd and choose ‘boot from first hard drive’ the same error occurs. There isn’t an option on systemrescuecd to ‘boot into installed linux’.
I’m trying to find another solution but so far the internet is firing blanks. Any help from you guys would be appreciated.
then can you post the contents of [b]/boot/grub/grub.cfg[/b]
Question … does Arch use GRUB legacy, or GRUB2 ?
Apologies, I’m using syslinux not grub.
Output of sda2: /boot/dev/syslinux.cfg
# Config file for Syslinux -
# /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg
#
# Comboot modules:
# * menu.c32 - provides a text menu
# * vesamenu.c32 - provides a graphical menu
# * chain.c32 - chainload MBRs, partition boot sectors, Windows bootloaders
# * hdt.c32 - hardware detection tool
# * reboot.c32 - reboots the system
# * poweroff.com - shutdown the system
#
# To Use: Copy the respective files from /usr/lib/syslinux to /boot/syslinux.
# If /usr and /boot are on the same file system, symlink the files instead
# of copying them.
#
# If you do not use a menu, a 'boot:' prompt will be shown and the system
# will boot automatically after 5 seconds.
#
# Please review the wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Syslinux
# The wiki provides further configuration examples
DEFAULT arch
PROMPT 0 # Change to 1 if you do not want to use a menu
TIMEOUT 50
# You can create syslinux keymaps with the keytab-lilo tool
#KBDMAP de.ktl
# Menu Configuration
# Either menu.c32 or vesamenu32.c32 must be copied to /boot/syslinux
UI menu.c32
#UI vesamenu.c32
# Refer to http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Doc/menu
MENU TITLE Arch Linux
#MENU BACKGROUND splash.png
MENU COLOR border 30;44 #40ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR title 1;36;44 #9033ccff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR sel 7;37;40 #e0ffffff #20ffffff all
MENU COLOR unsel 37;44 #50ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR help 37;40 #c0ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR timeout_msg 37;40 #80ffffff #00000000 std
MENU COLOR timeout 1;37;40 #c0ffffff #00000000 std
MENU COLOR msg07 37;40 #90ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR tabmsg 31;40 #30ffffff #00000000 std
# boot sections follow
#
# TIP: If you want a 1024x768 framebuffer, add "vga=773" to your kernel line.
#
#-*
# (0) Arch Linux
LABEL arch
MENU LABEL Arch Linux
LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
APPEND root=/dev/sda2 ro
INITRD ../initramfs-linux.img
# (1) Arch Linux Fallback
LABEL archfallback
MENU LABEL Arch Linux Fallback
LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
APPEND root=/dev/sda2 ro
INITRD ../initramfs-linux-fallback.img
# (2) Windows
#LABEL windows
#COM32 chain.c32
#APPEND hd0 0
LABEL hdt
MENU LABEL HDT (Hardware Detection Tool)
COM32 hdt.c32
LABEL reboot
MENU LABEL Reboot
COM32 reboot.c32
LABEL off
MENU LABEL Power Off
COMBOOT poweroff.com
Yeah I can mount it fine and access them without any problems. I thought it was corrupted at first as well but I don’t think it is now.
I can’t see any problems with the bootloader either.
Luckily I back everything up onto another hard drive, the one I normally use is my SSD. I want to try and fix the problem first though instead of just giving up!
Would you consider replacing syslinux with grub2 to see if it makes any difference?
HowTo on installing GRUB2 From a linux live CD:
http://my.opera.com/nikbhardwaj/blog/show.dml/9678911
I have also read somewhere that changing boot order in bios can upset the actual booting sequence.
Either that, or your filesystem has went and corrupted itself.
