[SOLVED] Recover from Emergency Mode

[hapEcat]

Last night, Mint20.3 froze, and nothing worked, no buttons, no nothing.
After an hour or so of this, a hard shutdown was done.
When I restarted, GRUB screen came up normally, the Mint20.3 option was selected, and it booted into "Emergency Mode", multiple times.
I've booted a "Live USB" and ran

Code: Select all

fsck /dev/sda8 -y

which is the root partition to no avail.... It boots back to "Emergency Mode".

What else can I do to boot back into Mint20.3, and recover from this "Emergency Mode"?
I'm used to the "BusyBox initramfs" errors, but this is over my head.
I'm driving from SC back to N FL, so It may take me until late tonight to respond, but any suggestions are appreciated.

[Termy]

IDK if this is old information or not, but the way I learned it, fsck(8) should never be operated on a mounted filesystem, for risk of data loss. It might be fine if you're just checking and not actually repairing, but I'm not certain of the specifics there. Anyway, do you remember what you were doing before it froze? Have you checked any log files (IE: '/var/log/syslog')?

Are you able to share your inxi -Fxxxrz from a backed up file stored on another machine, or something? If not, can we get an idea of your system? IE, which version of Mint. Is your signature up-to-date?

Does your laptop smell weird, lately? Has it been quieter lately? Did things gradually or suddenly slow down everywhere before the freeze? Have you heard any strange noises from the laptop, lately? Basically, I'm looking for some sort of explanation that might be hardware-related. Laptops can easily overheat, especially if you cover the vents. Yes, people do that.

[hapEcat]

Is your signature up-to-date?

Yes the signature is up-to-date, and I was watching a YouTube video when everything froze.

There is no overheating that I'm aware of... GPU and CPU both run in the 40-50 degree C range at all times, whether in Mint or W10. I use the applet in Mint, and "CoreTemp" in W10 to monitor the temperature.

I had this thing go into "Emergency Mode" once before, and recovered from it, but don't remember what I did... Mostly a bunch of fiddling with it, and it finally booted up.

EDIT...
I have no problems reaching the GRUB screen, to make my OS selection... It comes up at every boot/reboot.

[hapEcat]

I have a recent USB TimeShift backup, that was made ~3 days before this happened.
Any way to boot from a Live USB and restore the Mint OS from that TimeShift USB backup?
And if so, how is this done?

[SMG]

I have a recent USB TimeShift backup, that was made ~3 days before this happened.
Any way to boot from a Live USB and restore the Mint OS from that TimeShift USB backup?
And if so, how is this done?

Presuming you have two usb ports available, you would boot to a live session of Linux Mint using the usb and use Timeshift on it to restore your backup on the other usb to the hard drive.

I'm not completely sure, but I think Timeshift automatically looks for a backup so you may not need to tell it where to look. The last restore I did was using Timeshift on the hard drive (but my snapshot was on a usb) so I do not have experience with the specific setup you would be using.

[hapEcat]

I have a Live Mint20.3 USB, and TimeShift is on another USB. I have 2, 3.0 USB ports, and 1, 2.0 USB port.
Mainly, I just wanted to be sure that the TimeShift image could be installed on the "/" partition, and not to the Live USB.

[SMG]

Mainly, I just wanted to be sure that the TimeShift image could be installed on the "/" partition, and not to the Live USB.

Yes, it can. If that is your normal set-up (that specific external usb for snapshots from your hard drive), I believe that will be the defaults which will show in Live-session Timeshift. If they are not, you do have the ability to change the defaults.

[hapEcat]

... I believe that will be the defaults which will show in Live-session Timeshift. If they are not, you do have the ability to change the defaults.

Thank you, I shall give that a try, hopefully tonight.
W10 is beginning to be a drag, and not snappy like Mint, but it is a necessary evil.
Perhaps one day TimeShift will have its own "PE"/Live Session, like Macrium Reflect.

[hapEcat]

I booted into the Live Mint20.3 USB, plugged in the TimeShift USB, went into TS settings to point to the TimeShift USB, picked the last Snapshot, and followed the prompts. Rebooted from the Ventoy Live USB, GRUB came up, picked my Mint 20.3 OS, and it booted successfully!
It took all of 5min at best to remedy the problem!
This was my 1st "have to" use of TimeShift... Thank goodness I made those Snapshots!
A huge thanks to all who responded!
Marking, Solved.