Comments on: Debian-based machines and the (initramfs) prompt https://www.popmartian.com/tipsntricks/2007/08/09/debian-based-machines-and-the-initramfs-prompt/ Carpe Crap 'em Sat, 05 May 2012 18:21:03 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.10 By: Goden https://www.popmartian.com/tipsntricks/2007/08/09/debian-based-machines-and-the-initramfs-prompt/comment-page-1/#comment-32114 Sat, 05 May 2012 18:21:03 +0000 http://www.popmartian.com/tipsntricks/2007/08/09/debian-based-machines-and-the-initramfs-prompt/#comment-32114 problem is I don’t have CD Rom with the machine – all installed with HDs (6 in total) – I may need to switch a CD Rom in.

no idea for LVM though.

]]> By: admin https://www.popmartian.com/tipsntricks/2007/08/09/debian-based-machines-and-the-initramfs-prompt/comment-page-1/#comment-32112 Sat, 05 May 2012 18:02:30 +0000 http://www.popmartian.com/tipsntricks/2007/08/09/debian-based-machines-and-the-initramfs-prompt/#comment-32112 @Goden are you using LVM for /boot? You may have to mount /dev/mapper/

I’m not sure how you landed at the prompt, but if you are using grub you can boot from a rescue CD, mount the disk from there and tell grub to re-install the boot block to /dev/sda1 if you know that’s where it belongs. ]]> By: Goden https://www.popmartian.com/tipsntricks/2007/08/09/debian-based-machines-and-the-initramfs-prompt/comment-page-1/#comment-32101 Sat, 05 May 2012 15:14:22 +0000 http://www.popmartian.com/tipsntricks/2007/08/09/debian-based-machines-and-the-initramfs-prompt/#comment-32101 I got mount failed invalid argument, when trying to mount sda1 to /mnt.

I did “ls /dev/sd*” the partition is there and I’m sure this was the boot partition.
any ideas?

]]> By: cabanur https://www.popmartian.com/tipsntricks/2007/08/09/debian-based-machines-and-the-initramfs-prompt/comment-page-1/#comment-23326 Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:35:27 +0000 http://www.popmartian.com/tipsntricks/2007/08/09/debian-based-machines-and-the-initramfs-prompt/#comment-23326 Hi!

I had this same “initramfs” prompt, and for a while i have been trying to find the problem: i finally got it.

My hard disk configuration:

sda : 120 GB
sda1: /boot
sda2: /
sda3: /home
sda4: swap

sdb: 2 TB
sdc: 2 TB

I installed mdadm to use sdb and sdc as RAID1. the problem was, it only added sdb to the array, so I had a single-device RAID1 configuration, and that was why i got this initramfs prompt.

surprisingly, all I had to do to get back to normal boot was typing “exit” on the initramfs prompt. It would continue booting without any trouble at all.

To solve the array problem, all I did is (while on kubuntu) “sudo mdadm –manage –add /dev/md0 /dev/sdc”

Right now it’s copying sdb to sdc (building the raid1 array), i think this will solve it all.

By the way, while on initramfs, there’s a lot of things I could do, mostly creating a random dir in /, lets say /blah, then mounting sda2 in /blah/, sda1 in /blah/boot, and sda3 in /blah/home. then i chroot’ed to /blah.

Next, i executed /bin/bash, to get a normal prompt. From there, i could use most of my binaries, some things like shutdown didn’t work, anyway. I used this to check /boot/grub/grub.cfg was OK, and /etc/fstab was also fine.

I hope this helps anyone =)

]]> By: tony https://www.popmartian.com/tipsntricks/2007/08/09/debian-based-machines-and-the-initramfs-prompt/comment-page-1/#comment-9255 Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:53:41 +0000 http://www.popmartian.com/tipsntricks/2007/08/09/debian-based-machines-and-the-initramfs-prompt/#comment-9255 Thanks admin for you urgent help. I will try that.

]]> By: admin https://www.popmartian.com/tipsntricks/2007/08/09/debian-based-machines-and-the-initramfs-prompt/comment-page-1/#comment-9254 Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:21:54 +0000 http://www.popmartian.com/tipsntricks/2007/08/09/debian-based-machines-and-the-initramfs-prompt/#comment-9254 Vi should be available if your Debian + Initramfs environment is new enough. If it isn’t, you should be able to mount a disk and use a binary located there for editing. If all else fails, you can echo the line on to the menu.lst file, but be sure to use the double carrot >> and don’t screw it up. It will be hard to get your changes back out. The current version of busybox should have at least these commands available:
ash, awk, basename, blkid, cat, clear, cp, cttyhack, cut, depmod, echo, egrep, fgrep, grep, halt, init, insmod, ln, ls, lsmod, mdev, mkdir, mknod, modprobe, mount, mv, poweroff, reboot, rm, rmdir, rmmod, seq, sh, sleep, switch_root, touch, um

]]> By: tony https://www.popmartian.com/tipsntricks/2007/08/09/debian-based-machines-and-the-initramfs-prompt/comment-page-1/#comment-9253 Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:11:30 +0000 http://www.popmartian.com/tipsntricks/2007/08/09/debian-based-machines-and-the-initramfs-prompt/#comment-9253 I tried to edit my menu.lst file but tve vi editor is not available in the initramfs prompt.

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