Through own stupidity not able to boot Mint anymore

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linux-nu-bee

Through own stupidity not able to boot Mint anymore

Post by linux-nu-bee »

Hi,

A little help would be greatly appreciated please. Through a catalogue of errors it seems at this stage I have trashed my laptop :(
I have been running and using Mint (happily for over 6 months now) and experienced an issue with a recent update. Unfortunately I cannot retrieve which Kernel update I had an issue with as I cannot even boot now. Anyway I will try and summarise the nightmare few day's I have had:

1. Was getting errors in update manager with not enough disk space.
2. Researched and it appears during installation I made the boot partition too small
3. Tried everything possible to remove old Kernel versions but was again getting errors (cant remember why or what they were...sorry) so I could make space for the latest
4. Finally gave in and decided it would be a good idea to increase the boot partition. :D
5. Downloaded gparted and was fairly sure I followed exactly some random inx I found. Re-started machine
that was the last I saw of my lovely Mint desktop.
6. Now when i boot I get into GNU GRUB (which is something I have no experience with) and am faced with 4 options.
7. Again some more research suggested I try and boot previous Kernels but I always get the the same result (attached)

I do not know what to do at this point and am considering trying to re-create another USB ISO but am hesitant for two reasons; assumption is I lose all data and the second being it wont work anyway and I have to accept defeat :cry:

Anyway hoping someone can be so kind as to help me out
cheers
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Moem
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Re: Through own stupidity not able to boot Mint anymore

Post by Moem »

Sounds like you tried to use GParted from the same installation that you were trying to make changes to? Yeah, that can definitely go sideways... the safer way to do this is to boot from a USBstick (GParted is preinstalled in the live version of Mint) and make your changes that way.

If all else fails, you can probably boot from that selfsame USB stick, save your data to a second USB stick or other external medium, and then reinstall.

Good luck, I hope you'll find a good solution!
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fabien85
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Re: Through own stupidity not able to boot Mint anymore

Post by fabien85 »

Yep your first move is to make a live USB, that's the tool that will allow you to either repair your system (if it's possible) or at least try to save your data.

Did you encrypt your installation ? I see a reference to encryption in your screenshot, but am not sure if this is relevant.
If you didnt use encryption, that's good.
If you did, it's going to be tougher.

First case (no encryption): boot the live USB, open gparted and check you can see your Mint root partition (and /home if you made a separate one), i.e. they are not damaged. If so, I suggest to make a backup of all your data to an external drive before anything else.
If the partitions are not visible anymore, then you are in trouble. I suggest first running a recovery software like photorec to try to recover as much as possible of your data.

Second case: what encryption did you use, full disk encryption or just home directory ?
Boot a live USB, make a screenshot of gparted and post it here.
WharfRat

Re: Through own stupidity not able to boot Mint anymore

Post by WharfRat »

Hello linux-nu-bee Image

Welcome to Linux Mint and the Linux Mint forum :)

If you did resize from a running system you might have damaged the filesystem.

You can try running blkid|grep ext2 to identify the boot partition designation then try e2fsck -fvy /dev/sda1 from the initramfs prompt.

Replace /dev/sda1 with the partition returned with the blkid|grep ext2 command. It probably is /dev/sda1.

Then try to boot.
gm10

Re: Through own stupidity not able to boot Mint anymore

Post by gm10 »

I disagree with most of the comments above: GParted cannot do anything problematic to partitions in use. Also you are clearly booting the kernel in that screenshot, so your boot partition works fine. The problem is that it complains that it cannot find another partition that was part of your LVM volume. Maybe you deleted one to make room for a bigger /boot? You will need to edit the /etc/fstab and/or /etc/crypttab on the root partition of your drive, you can access them via a live USB. In case of doubt post them here along with output of

Code: Select all

lsblk -f
linux-nu-bee

Re: Through own stupidity not able to boot Mint anymore

Post by linux-nu-bee »

Hi all

Thanks a lot for your replies, appreciate it!
I downloaded the latest distro and created a new USB ISO. When booting from this I can now run mint.

@gm10 I think I did delete a partition... :shock: below is what "lsblk -f" produces
NAME FSTYPE LABEL UUID MOUNTPOINT
loop0
squash /rofs
sda
└─sda1
ext2 1ddd7888-bb20-49bf-ac76-43fd99966cb2
sdb iso966 Linux Mint 19 Cinnamon 64-bit
│ 2018-07-17-14-01-15-00 /cdrom
├─sdb1
│ iso966 Linux Mint 19 Cinnamon 64-bit
│ 2018-07-17-14-01-15-00
└─sdb2
vfat Linux Mint 19 Cinnamon 64-bit
044E-AC17
sr0


@WharfRat thanks for the welcome, any chance I can do what you have said via gparted?
@fabien85 Yes I encrypted both and see attached a screenshot of gparted
@Moem Yeah sideways is the way this has gone, however I try and remain positive as at least I am learning! As a last resort I will re-install but am loath to lose data

Again thanks all
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Re: Through own stupidity not able to boot Mint anymore

Post by Moem »

You are learning, for sure! If you can backup your data, it would be safe in the case of a reinstall. In fact, I would back it up no matter what, since you're doing lots of stuff and it's better to always have a recent copy, especially when you are making big changes.
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WharfRat

Re: Through own stupidity not able to boot Mint anymore

Post by WharfRat »

Unfortunately you did lose your data :(

Your gparted screenshot does not show allocated space for your Mint installation.

If should look like this showing a crypt-luks partition for an encrypted system.
Screenshot at 2018-10-16 11-47-31.png
And lsblk should show something like this:

Code: Select all

[bill@vb] ~ $ lsblk -f
NAME                  FSTYPE      LABEL UUID                                   MOUNTPOINT
sdb                   LVM2_member       PvmEOh-ke5O-J0Hb-TD7W-0dmd-AABv-RVhqvB 
└─mint--vg-root       ext4              3fd39c6a-dc4c-4c50-9e71-c7c6b1381c5d   /
sr0                                                                            
sda                                                                            
├─sda5                crypto_LUKS       e213d987-0fa3-42d8-b379-0c1b61d536b5   
│ └─sda5_crypt        LVM2_member       ZjHvWU-yaBK-L9mH-4EHK-Cf9l-15aZ-gXAesM 
│   ├─mint--vg-root   ext4              3fd39c6a-dc4c-4c50-9e71-c7c6b1381c5d   /
│   └─mint--vg-swap_1 swap              d6dad645-23e6-4051-a343-d0859ee999f3   [SWAP]
└─sda1                ext2              2d10d5a0-b341-4279-8c6e-fb1ede053946   /boot
[bill@vb] ~ $ 

You're going to have to bite the bullet and reinstall.
gm10

Re: Through own stupidity not able to boot Mint anymore

Post by gm10 »

WharfRat wrote: Tue Oct 16, 2018 11:53 am Unfortunately you did lose your data :(

Your gparted screenshot does not show allocated space for your Mint installation.

If should look like this showing a crypt-luks partition for an encrypted system.
Remember he's on a live USB and hasn't unlocked the encrypted partition yet, so it's normal you can't see a thing. I don't know, can the GUI auto-mount an encrypted partition or will he have to use cryptsetup to do it from the command line?
WharfRat

Re: Through own stupidity not able to boot Mint anymore

Post by WharfRat »

gm10 wrote: Tue Oct 16, 2018 12:15 pm
WharfRat wrote: Tue Oct 16, 2018 11:53 am Unfortunately you did lose your data :(

Your gparted screenshot does not show allocated space for your Mint installation.

If should look like this showing a crypt-luks partition for an encrypted system.
Remember he's on a live USB and hasn't unlocked the encrypted partition yet, so it's normal you can't see a thing. I don't know, can the GUI auto-mount an encrypted partition or will he have to use cryptsetup to do it from the command line?
It should show with gparted, lsblk and blkid.

A method of recovering data or chrooting is to open the LUKS container and mounting mint--vg-root with

Code: Select all

/sbin/cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda5  sda5_crypt   # sda5 matches the encrypted partition
mount /dev/mapper/mint--vg-root /mnt
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
mount -t proc none /mnt/proc
mount --rbind /sys /mnt/sys
mount --rbind /dev /mnt/dev
/usr/sbin/chroot /mnt /bin/bash
The OP's post shows unallocated space beyond sda1.
gm10

Re: Through own stupidity not able to boot Mint anymore

Post by gm10 »

WharfRat wrote: Tue Oct 16, 2018 12:21 pm The OP's post shows unallocated space beyond sda1.
I've seen that happen before in gparted with encrypted partitions. But the lsblk output should show it the extended container, that not being there means you're likely right in the end. I think he'll need testdisk in hopes of recovering that extended partition? Since he only increases sda1 in size but didn't write to it there's a chance that could work I guess. Or just bite the bullet, declare it all lost and clean install it all. Shouldn't be a problem if backups were made.
linux-nu-bee

Re: Through own stupidity not able to boot Mint anymore

Post by linux-nu-bee »

Again thanks all for your help and I have bitten the bullet and done a clean install.
gparted now looks like the attached. Hopefully I dont run into the same issue again :D

If you see anything weird in that screenshot I'd appreciate if you could let me know

cheers
WharfRat

Re: Through own stupidity not able to boot Mint anymore

Post by WharfRat »

I also see you opted to do a non-encrypted installation which significantly simplifies things.

Looks much better than your original gparted screenshot :wink:
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Re: Through own stupidity not able to boot Mint anymore

Post by silvatech »

linux-nu-bee wrote: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:47 pm Again thanks all for your help and I have bitten the bullet and done a clean install.
gparted now looks like the attached. Hopefully I dont run into the same issue again :D

If you see anything weird in that screenshot I'd appreciate if you could let me know

cheers
Personally, I always have a separate partition for my home. For re installation purposes and that. Other wise it looks fine.
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