Can't boot OS

[Logman]

I have a multi OS setup using unlimited primaries, and one OS ( Ubuntu 18.04 ) which I have been using for a couple of years, suddenly won't boot.
When I choose the OS in Boot Manager, it goes to load it, and I am left with a black screen with a blinking white cursor on top left of screen. When I hit the power button the whole computer shuts down.

I tried restoring different back-up images of that OS, and they all do the same.

All the other OS's, Win 10, MInt 18, Mint 20, Ubuntu 20.04 all load fine.

I haven't a clue if I can fix this, I would like to as that OS has lots of customizations, and I find it weird that all the backup images do the same.

I did try restoring an image that was done before I switched to unlimited primaries and resized some partitions, but I couldn't restore it as I got an overlapping partitions error, which is understandable being as that image was from a 100GB partition, which is now 70GB.

I did try loading a new version of Ubuntu 18.04.5 from USB, and it installed fine to that partition.

I'm using Legacy boot, NOT UEFI on this system.

Any hope of fixing this ?

[Brian K]

Logman,

I suggest trying this (check and repair the file system) using Terminal in your IFL boot disk...


e2fsck -vfy /dev/sdaX

sdaX is your Ubuntu partition. Don't mount the Ubuntu partition.

[Logman]

Thanks for that Brian, I guess I will have to make the IFL boot disk, I haven't made one for yrs, never had a reason to till now and will try it tomorrow.

I just don't understand why it does the same thing with all the images I made for that partition.

[Brian K]

Logman wrote:
>, I guess I will have to make the IFL boot disk, I
> haven't made one for yrs, never had a reason to till now and will try it
> tomorrow.
>
Logman,

You don't have to use IFL. You can use any of your Linux OS...

sudo e2fsck -vfy /dev/sdaX

[Logman]

Brian K wrote:
> Logman wrote:
> >, I guess I will have to make the IFL boot disk, I
> > haven't made one for yrs, never had a reason to till now and will try it
> > tomorrow.
> >
> Logman,
>
> You don't have to use IFL. You can use any of your Linux OS...
>
> sudo e2fsck -vfy /dev/sdaX

That is great info brian, thanks for that, will post back tomorrow when I put the old image back on the partition !

[Logman]

Well I just tried it and got this :

"e2fsck -vfy /dev/nvme01p3
e2fsck 1.44.1 (24-Mar-2018)
e2fsck: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/nvme01p3
Possibly non-existent device?"

Now what ?

[Brian K]

Logman wrote:
> Well I just tried it and got this :
>
> "e2fsck -vfy /dev/nvme01p3
> e2fsck 1.44.1 (24-Mar-2018)
> e2fsck: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/nvme01p3
> Possibly non-existent device?"
>
> Now what ?

Logman,

Is nvme01p3 the root partition for the non booting Linux OS? My nomenclature is slightly different. nvme0n1p3

I just tried it and got the same error you saw. I then tried it in IFL and it worked but there was a different partition number. I retried it in another Linux OS and it worked. This time the partition number matched the one I saw in IFL. I suspect I used an incorrect partition number on the first occasion.
Get the partition number from blkid

[Logman]

Brian K wrote:
> Logman wrote:
> > Well I just tried it and got this :
> >
> > "e2fsck -vfy /dev/nvme01p3
> > e2fsck 1.44.1 (24-Mar-2018)
> > e2fsck: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/nvme01p3
> > Possibly non-existent device?"
> >
> > Now what ?
>
> Logman,
>
> Is nvme01p3 the root partition for the non booting Linux OS? My nomenclature is
> slightly different. nvme0n1p3
>
> I just tried it and got the same error you saw. I then tried it in IFL and it worked
> but there was a different partition number. I retried it in another Linux OS and it
> worked. This time the partition number matched the one I saw in IFL. I suspect I used
> an incorrect partition number on the first occasion.
> Get the partition number from blkid

I guess somehow I missed the "n" on nvme0n1p3 when running the check from a terminal. Oops !

Anyway, when I rerun the command you gave I now get this

"e2fsck -vfy /dev/nvme0n1p3
e2fsck 1.44.1 (24-Mar-2018)
e2fsck: Permission denied while trying to open /dev/nvme0n1p3
You must have r/w access to the filesystem or be root"

How do I fix that ?

I did run file repair from the Disks app on that partition, and it said it had repaired it, but it still doesn't work.

[Logman]

Okay, figured out I use sudo first to get r/w access.

Here's the result :

sudo e2fsck -vfy /dev/nvme0n1p3
[sudo] password for LogMan:
e2fsck 1.44.1 (24-Mar-2018)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information

274449 inodes used (6.12%, out of 4481024)
1497 non-contiguous files (0.5%)
341 non-contiguous directories (0.1%)
# of inodes with ind/dind/tind blocks: 0/0/0
Extent depth histogram: 246114/312
5273863 blocks used (29.43%, out of 17920000)
0 bad blocks
2 large files

208160 regular files
35812 directories
7 character device files
0 block device files
1 fifo
49 links
30458 symbolic links (28005 fast symbolic links)
2 sockets
------------
274489 files

Does that mean anything to you ?

[Brian K]

Logman wrote:

>
> Does that mean anything to you ?

Not really but mine looks the same.

I guess you still can't get the OS to boot?
Are you restoring an image taken of a 100 GB partition into a 70 GB space?