Failed to boot after reboot

FTouzain

Here is what sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg gives me:

I backed up my original /boot/grub/grub.cfg as /boot/grub/grub.cfg.back

Generating grub configuration file ...
Warning: os-prober will be executed to detect other bootable partitions.
Its output will be used to detect bootable binaries on them and create new boot entries.
grub-probe: error: cannot find a GRUB drive for /dev/sde1.  Check your device.map.
done

So, I deduce the /boot directory is the one of my live USB ? (/dev/sde1).

What is exactly the command to mount the /boot partition of my nvme please? (and in which directory) (if it is possible).

There is strictly no difference between the new and the old /boot/grub/grub.cfg file.

FTouzain

For information, as I wanted to be sure I had all my drives, I did sudo mount -a yesterday (I had forgetten it).
So, my nvme1n1p2 is currently mounted at / and was already mounted when I typed sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg).
So, what does the /boot directory correspond to ? (really the boot directory mounted? but why /dev/sde1, my usb key ? I don't see /dev/sde1 if I do a df command, because of the chroot ?)

I don't know well linux system mechanisms and architecture as you will guess

In addition of the drives I usually have, I have those ones:

devtmpfs                4096          0       4096   0% /dev
none                32885532          0   32885532   0% /dev/shm
efivarfs                 128         40         84  32% /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

pomon

Show:

lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,MOUNTPOINT
[ -d /sys/firmware/efi ] && echo "UEFI" || echo "BIOS"
efibootmgr
grub-install --version

FTouzain

lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,MOUNTPOINT
gives:

NAME        FSTYPE MOUNTPOINT
loop0              
loop1              
sda                
└─sda1             /media/dd_photos1
sdb                
└─sdb1             /media/dd_photos2
sdc                
└─sdc1             /media/ssd_travail
sdd                
└─sdd1             /media/dd_travail
sde                
├─sde1             
└─sde2             
zram0              [SWAP]
nvme1n1            
├─nvme1n1p1        
└─nvme1n1p2        /
nvme0n1            
└─nvme0n1p1        /media/data

[ -d /sys/firmware/efi ] && echo "UEFI" || echo "BIOS"
gives:

UEFI

efibootmgr
gives:

bash: efibootmgr : commande introuvable

translation: command not found

grub-install --version
gives:

grub-install (GRUB) 2.12

pomon

A bit strange that it doesn’t show FSTYPE. Try:

sudo fdisk -l | grep -i efi
or
sudo blkid | awk '{print $1, $3, $4}'

I want to locate which partition is /boot so it can be mounted and its contents checked.

Install sudo eopkg it efibootmgr

FTouzain

sudo fdisk -l | grep -i efi
gives

/dev/sde2               136  409735   409600   200M ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)

sudo blkid | awk '{print $1, $3, $4}'
gives

/dev/nvme0n1p1: UUID="9638b75b-4bb0-43fb-ac7e-61a105d68a4f" BLOCK_SIZE="4096"
/dev/nvme1n1p1: TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="875fad34-01"
/dev/sda1: BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/loop1: BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdd1: UUID="a361777e-56f5-400e-bb3d-12184e91d498" BLOCK_SIZE="4096"
/dev/sdb1: BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs" 
/dev/sde2: LABEL_FATBOOT="SOLUSESP" LABEL="SOLUSESP"
/dev/sde1: UUID="2025-01-25-00-21-18-00" LABEL="SolusLiveBudgie"
/dev/sdc1: UUID="63caab14-bfbc-4140-9d7d-6353e4ab87bc" BLOCK_SIZE="4096"
/dev/nvme1n1p2: BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/zram0: UUID="918780e5-97a4-416d-94d4-5ff158c1ba83" TYPE="swap"

/dev/nvme0n1p1 is supposed to be ext4, I don't know why it is not displayed.

/dev/nvme1n1p2 is supposed to be my Solus partition.

FTouzain

sudo eopkg it efibootmgr:

Taille totale du/des paquets(s) : 24.00 KB
Téléchargement 1 / 1
Paquet efibootmgr trouvé dans le dépôt Solus
efibootmgr-18-3-1-x86_64.eopkg (24.0 KB)100%      0.00 --/- [--:--:--] [fini]
Installation 1 / 1
efibootmgr-18-3-1-x86_64.eopkg [en cache]
Installation de efibootmgr, version 18, millésime 3
Extraction des fichiers de efibootmgr
efibootmgr installé
 [✓] Syncing filesystems                                                success
 [ ] Updating clr-boot-manager                                          skipped
 [ ] Updating clr-boot-manager                                          skipped
 [ ] Reloading systemd configuration                                    skipped
 [✓] Updating manpages database                                         success
 [ ] Reloading udev rules                                               skipped
 [ ] Reloading udev rules                                               skipped

pomon

FTouzain
Check if anything is mounted under /boot with findmnt /boot. If not, run sudo mount /dev/sde2 /boot and check the contents with ls /boot.
Since you have already installed it, show the output of efibootmgr.

It’s a bit strange that /dev/nvme1n1p2 is marked as boot. This means it might contain boot files. Show ls /target.

stocc

I think your system may be using MBR, but I don't know which disk has the MBR installed on it. fdisk -l should show the boot flag I believe, but how you actually resolve the issue, I can't help I'm afraid.

FTouzain

stocc

fdisk -l show the booting flag for:

/dev/sde1
/dev/nvme1n1p2

Thank you for your troubleshooting attempt.

FTouzain

Nothing mounted in /boot (no output).

findmnt /boot
sudo mount /dev/sde2 /boot
ls /boot

Last command gives:

EFI  initrd  kernel  loader  solus-enroll-me.cer

efibootmgr gives:

No BootOrder is set; firmware will attempt recovery

There is no /target directory because I am in chroot.
When doing in a terminal not in chroot ls /target, I get:

bin   dev   lib    lost+found  node_modules_20  root  snap  tmp  vmlinuz
boot  etc   lib32  media       opt              run   srv   usr
data  home  lib64  mnt         proc             sbin  sys   var

All the commands you asked me before was supposed to be in the chroot terminal? Isn't it?

Thank you.

stocc

FTouzain /dev/sde is your live USB, correct?
It seems to me that perhaps /dev/nvme1n1 should contain the MBR and point to nvme1n1p2 as the bootable partition but perhaps it has become corrupted? There are commands to re-create the MBR, but that destroys any existing partitions and I wouldn't want to be responsible for destroying any data you already have installed on that disk. As I mentioned earlier, it may be best to run rescatux to see what that shows.
Worst case, you may have to re-install...

FTouzain

/dev/sde is my live USB, and it is sure that nvme1n1 was bootable.
It is listed as 'msdos' that makes me think this ssd has a mbr (all the ssd are msdos labelled, all harddrives are labeled gpt by parted -l on this computer).

FTouzain

sudo gdisk -l /dev/nvme1n1
gives:

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.10

Partition table scan:
  MBR: MBR only
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: not present


***************************************************************
Found invalid GPT and valid MBR; converting MBR to GPT format
in memory. 
***************************************************************

Disk /dev/nvme1n1: 1953525168 sectors, 931.5 GiB
Model: Samsung SSD 960 EVO 1TB                 
Sector size (logical/physical): 512/512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 887D27B1-E2CF-421C-8C33-19A1B70E0B92
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1953525134
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2010 sectors (1005.0 KiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1              93         7812592   3.7 GiB     8200  Linux swap
   2         7812624      1953523214   927.8 GiB   8300  Linux filesystem

stocc

FTouzain So if you issue parted /dev/nvme1n1 print, what do you see for the partition table?

FTouzain

stocc

sudo parted /dev/nvme1n1 print
gives:

Modèle : Samsung SSD 960 EVO 1TB (nvme)
Disque /dev/nvme1n1 : 1000GB
Taille des secteurs (logiques/physiques) : 512B/512B
Table de partitions : msdos
Drapeaux de disque : 

Numéro  Début   Fin     Taille  Type     Système de fichiers  Drapeaux
 1      47,6kB  4000MB  4000MB  primary  linux-swap(v1)       swap
 2      4000MB  1000GB  996GB   primary  ext4                 démarrage

démarrage is for starting/boot

brent

this happened to me once, it got all a**-backwards and I have no idea why. Inattention on my part maybe.
My boot wound up on a usb and the ext4 wound up on the HDD. They had to be symbiotic to operate. When the usb was not plugged in, it would not boot.

I don't see why you can't shrink your ext4 by 1GB. Format a new boot drive (fat probably). Make sure LEGACY only is chosen in your bios. And live iso then chroot then boot rescue and let solus rebuild/create the grub right in that partition. Grub probably doens't need 1GB though--maybe 1MB 🙂.

If all this seems daunting (I've done this a few times---every time is daunting), then back up what you need to and do a fresh install being careful to let Solus nuke and pave the whole nvme.

Now...if you cannot force your BIOS to Legacy only, at this stage consider installing systemd boot.
--deep thoughts/2 cents/etc

FTouzain

brent

If I have no choice, I will just do a fresh install on all the nvme1n1. Most of my data are already backed up. Only Download directory and some little things more anoying for me (because not stored as text and not backed up... with no way to easyly copy it) are not backed up. And in all cases, I will do a copy of data present on the booting nvme "just in case I forget something" before install.

But it would be great for me not to have to reinstall everything. Thanks

stocc

FTouzain So, Table de partitions : msdos shows that it is MBR. Aside from rescatux, there does seem to be a tool called Tesdisk (https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step) which claims to be able to analyse and repair such issues, but it does warn that data may be lost etc... The software is in the Solus repository, so if you are running the Solus live environment you should be able to download it and run it against the nvme1n1 SSD to at least analyse it.

brent

FTouzain But it would be great for me not to have to reinstall everything. Thanks

the only other choice is to make a boot partition and use boot rescue, chroot, and let solus make the boot partition..depends on your confidence. there's that uefi problem as well...if solus is all by itself then the easiest thing to do is---if you are truly on a efi build---then skip the grub and choose uefi bootloader.

or....clone your ext4, put it somewhere else. meanwhile you can make the whole damn SSD a LEGACY install via bios. make a boot parition with boot flags. paste the ext4 next to it. have solus live populate the chrooted boot drive wit fresh files. I've done both. all a PITA.

I think @stocc thinks some exploring with these tools is in order and I agree it could be the easiest fix of all if these tools can rescue your grub

AlphaElwedritsch

FTouzain are not backed up.

Maybe consider a managed Nextcloud. It's available for a small fee and saves a lot of hassle.
Always sync important data with it, and you don't have to worry about it anymore.
Here in Germany, these things don't cost much...
I don't want to be without them anymore.
I can set up a new system in minutes without worrying about forgetting to back something up. Or, as in your case, a corrupted system isn't a problem either.

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