Failed to boot after reboot

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.

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.

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.

FTouzain

Thank you for your answers.

I am going to test Testdisk. I prefer not to do too complicated things. My only reasonable alternative would be to do a new fresh install.

If I understand well, I must not be in the chroot (and I must close it) and I must run testdisk in a solus live terminal @stocc ? Thanks again

stocc

FTouzain Yes, no chroot. Straight from the live session would be best I think.

FTouzain

AlphaElwedritsch

Really a few things are not backed up either recently downloaded or that I consider too sensitive to backup. And I'm currently backuping my home 😉

Thank you for your help and advices @stocc and @AlphaElwedritsch . I will tell you if the system mbr recovery successed or if I had to create a new white page 🙂.

stocc

FTouzain Good luck / bon chance!

FTouzain

Thank you.

Recovery has not worked.

I installed Solus on the whole original nvme (with the nice surprise that he asks if I want to create a swap "hibernation compatible", reason for which I had previously created a swap file believing it will allow me to hibernate, thing impossible at the beginning of my Solus installation).

For information, I still have the clr-boot-manager same error (really strange because I really remove all partitions of the disk using gparted before reinstalling), but the computer boot.
The bad news is that, now, I am facing another bug (black screen after login, already reported here) due to my nvidia graphic card (GTX1070) drivers not maintained anymore... I really hate this way to force people to change hardware just by not maintaining or not providing anymore softs.

So, currently, I am again in chroot to remove the nvidia driver I installed believing it could solve my problem of black screen. I installed 470 drivers, maybe I needed to install another version ?
(I had a black screen after login before I install nvidia drivers, but I had still the possibility to login in Solus even if I had black screen: at less Ctrl Alt F2 made me accessing to TTY. Since I installed nvidia drivers, I even cannot boot to solus (more precisely, I keep a view of my motherboard provider instead of usual screen... I changed booting order to come back in Solus live of my USB key).

Please:

How can I install nvidia drivers of the previous solus version (that was working in my case) please? and
Is there a way to fix driver versions so that they are not updated with solus system? (and stay compatible with my graphic card)

Hardware related issue is... tiring (and I suppose even more for people maintaining linux distributions, that's an heroic work!).
Many thanks

Staudey

FTouzain due to my nvidia graphic card (GTX1070) drivers not maintained anymore

This is not the case. Your GPU is still supported by the mainline NVIDIA driver packages, so this must be some sort of bug.

asianbullet

Had a read through of the thread, I can only give you my experience when I had issues a few months back if you are doing a fresh install as it looks like you maybe doing;

Backed up data
Physically disconnected/removed all external & internal drives apart from the internal nvme drive installing to.
In M/B BIOS confirmed it is in UEFI mode (dependant on your M/B capability).
Booted into live usb, used gparted to delete all partitions on nvme drive installing to.
Started Solus OS installer, let the installer create the partitions & chose size of swap space I wanted.
Booted into fresh Solus install, I did NOT install the Nvidia drivers at all!
Instead I did an entire system update 1st, rebooted to confirm updates & stable.
Then I installed nvidia drivers via Hardware drivers/doflicky, rebooted to confirm working. I am using a GTX980 on the latest current drivers, which is not currently depreciated/legacy..yet.
Physically re-connected/attached all external & internal drives one-by-one to confirm visible/working.

It’s laborious I know but as I was doing a fresh install thought I’d be methodical, this may help.

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