[SOLVED]Sylvia suddenly will not boot

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exfed2002

[SOLVED]Sylvia suddenly will not boot

Post by exfed2002 »

I am suddenly faced with a Sylvia installation which will not boot.

Several days ago, after a year plus working normally using GRUB on a Linux/Windows installation (separate drives), I fired up the system and it stopped after selecting the normal Linux boot with a message that it could not start the X-server.

OK, I rebooted in recovery mode and got a desktop at a lower resolution.

Shut that down and the normal boot went fine, even rebooted several times in the next few days and all was well.

Then suddenly, I was trying to send mail out of Thunderbird and I was getting a mail assembling message but it would not go.

So, I tried to reboot, and since then I have been ending up at the busybox prompt. (GRUB appears and there is a LM splash before failure before busybox)

If I can attach a photo of the screen after I exit busybox, I will. In summary, I see the following message after the machine checked the root file system:

/dev/mapper/mint--vg-root contains a file system with errors, check forced.
/dev/mapper/mint--vg-root:
Inodes that were part of a corrupted orphan linked list found.

/dev/mapper/mint--vg-root:UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
(i.e. without -a or -p options)
fsck exited with status code 4
done.
Failure: File system check of the root file system failed
The root file system on /dev/mapper/mint--vg-root requires a manual fsck

I will add that I can still boot Windows 10, and the second drive with the LINUX install is visible and I can access files and see the directory structure.

So.............what does this sound like and what can I do to save the install? I am trying to figure out if fsck will solve my problem and how to run it.

Any hints?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
WharfRat

Re: Sylvia suddenly will not boot

Post by WharfRat »

From that prompt check if /dev/mapper/mint--vg-root is mounted and if it is unmount it.

Then runfsck -fyv /dev/mapper/mint--vg-root followed by exit when fsck is done.

It should continue on if fsck was able to repair the problem,
exfed2002

Re: Sylvia suddenly will not boot

Post by exfed2002 »

Thank you.

Would the disk normally be mounted, and if so, how do I force an unmount from the prompt.
WharfRat

Re: Sylvia suddenly will not boot

Post by WharfRat »

exfed2002 wrote:Thank you.

Would the disk normally be mounted, and if so, how do I force an unmount from the prompt.
I doubt that it would be mounted at this point since a mounted partition should not be fsck'd as that could cause damage to the filesystem - and you wouldn't want that to happen.

Run mount|grep root or just mount to see if there are any results.

If so run umount /dev/mapper/mint--vg-root then double-check.
exfed2002

Re: Sylvia suddenly will not boot

Post by exfed2002 »

Followed your advice and we are back in business! Thank you!

I wonder why this happened in the first place?
WharfRat

Re: Sylvia suddenly will not boot

Post by WharfRat »

exfed2002 wrote:Followed your advice and we are back in business! Thank you!

I wonder why this happened in the first place?
Probably a check was never done for as long as you were running it.

What does this show sudo tune2fs -l /dev/mapper/mint--vg-root|grep Maximum
exfed2002

Re: Sylvia suddenly will not boot

Post by exfed2002 »

WharfRat wrote:
exfed2002 wrote:Followed your advice and we are back in business! Thank you!

I wonder why this happened in the first place?
Probably a check was never done for as long as you were running it.

What does this show sudo tune2fs -l /dev/mapper/mint--vg-root|grep Maximum
Only the one I just did!
WharfRat

Re: Sylvia suddenly will not boot

Post by WharfRat »

Could you paste back the results like so:

Code: Select all

[bill@XPS] ~/initrd_image/initrd $ sudo tune2fs -l /dev/sda6|grep Maximum
Maximum mount count:      35
[bill@XPS] ~/initrd_image/initrd $ 
exfed2002

Re: Sylvia suddenly will not boot

Post by exfed2002 »

exfed2002 wrote:Followed your advice and we are back in business! Thank you!

I wonder why this happened in the first place?
Just an update.

Being back in business and being reliable are two different things.

Sometimes it would fail and doing the fsck thing would fix it. Other times not.

Other times turning off the CPU and letting it sit overnight would cause it to act like nothing happened.

Last Friday I tried to do a shutdown and it froze at the LM splashscreen.

After 15 minutes of this, shut down the CPU with the power switch.

Tried to restart and it froze at the POST banner, could not get into the BIOS.

Talked to a computer engineer friend (we had originally thought the SSD was going bad and causing the boot failures) and he was puzzled.

So, powered everything off, cleared and reset the CMOS and seems to be OK now, no failures since.

Crossing fingers and other appendages............................
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