i am still trying to get something to boot and will be grateful for any suggestions, including other places to ask.
i don't understand why i am getting this boot error on the internal toshiba. it says it does not exist but it does exist? what does "-r" refer to? is it wrong to copy over one's installation, change fstab and crypttab, and do initramfs and grub? shouldn't this make it boot just like it does on the existing drive? google has not provided me any enlightenment. the thumb drive has still not gotten to the grub stage so i am going to give up on that one and try to get the internal drive to boot. here is a clarified question. thanks. please tell me if any further information is needed. i am running wheezy and i want to upgrade to jessie. i can't do that until i have an immediately-usable backup drive booting properly. in my case, this means the same environment (not a rescue cd). everything boots ok on my main internal drive. the computer runs bios and i formatted all disks to use mbr. i don't use lvm or raid. i tried getting the new toshiba internal hard drive to boot. i formatted as follows: ext2 for boot and luks with ext4 on root. i have /boot on /dev/sda1 and /root on /dev/sda3. i copied to root and to boot, confirmed that the copy was perfect (using separate unix tools), edited the target's crypttab and fstab to set uuid and /dev/mapper/name, prepared a chroot (proc, sys, dev), entered the chroot, and ran "update-initramfs -u -k all; update-grub; dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc". i got no errors. i selected the drive, not a partition, for the boot device. (i was told that that dpkg-reconfigure runs grub-install and is the better option in this case because an upgrade could screw everything up otherwise.) grub comes up, i select the default debian version. the kernel loads and starts doing things for 7 seconds. (by the way, i was able to notice that around 4 seconds, in among a whole bunch of usb messages, it says something like "waiting for encrypted source device...". but there are too many usb messages and scrolling does not work well so i could not determine whether that sequence continued.) then booting does nothing until 64 seconds. the last boot messages before this were attaching hard drives (it attached sda sdb sdc i think; sdc is merely an external usb device). then two lines saying USB disconnect, device number #. then more messages. then drops into a shell, initramfs. the error message is roughly like the following (transcribed manually, "..." not in the original). Check cryptopts=source= bootarg:cat/proc/command line or missing modules, device:cat/proc/modules ls/dev -r ALERT! /dev/disk/by-uuid/a892...732 does not exist dropping to a shell! i do not understand this error message. that partition DOES exist. the uuid refers to /dev/sda3 (the raw partition that contains encrypted root). in fact, in the initrd busybox shell, i can do cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda3 toshiba-root. i do not know how or where to mount it, however. mounting it on / not work. strangely, despite having dropped into an initramfs shell, the kernel keeps spewing USB messages every 30 seconds or so. these start with usb disconnect, then new usb device and it mentions my mouses and stuff. i have to clear the screen each time. /proc/cmdline says BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-amd64 root=/dev/mapper/toshiba-root ro too many modules to transcribe, but include dm-crypt and dm-mod. i would be very grateful for any help. On 5/17/15, gofloss gofloss <goflos...@gmail.com> wrote: > please tell me if any further information is needed. > > i am running wheezy and i want to upgrade to jessie. i > can't do that until i have an immediately-usable backup > drive booting properly. in my case, this means the same > environment (not a rescue cd). > > for my second drive i will happily boot from either my new > internal toshiba or my thumb drive. i don't care which one. > > everything boots ok on my main internal drive. the computer > runs bios and i formatted all disks to use mbr. i don't use > lvm or raid. > > i tried getting both the toshiba and the thumb drive to > boot. to make each drive boot, i formatted as follows: ext2 > for boot and luks with ext4 on root. for example, on > toshiba, i have /boot on /dev/sda1 and /root on /dev/sda3. > > i copied to root and to boot, confirmed that the copy was > perfect (using separate unix tools), edited the target's > crypttab and fstab (to set uuid and /dev/mapper/name, confirmed all of > the uuids etc., > prepared a chroot (proc, sys, dev), entered the chroot, and > ran "update-initramfs -u -k all; update-grub; > dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc". i got no errors. i selected the > drive, not a partition, for the boot device. (i was told > that that dpkg-reconfigure runs grub-install and is the > better option in this case because an upgrade could screw > everything up otherwise.) > > both drives did not boot correctly, but in different ways. > > the thumb drive is quick to describe. it's in the bios boot > sequence, but even though i put grub on it, it doesn't boot. > it just defaults to the next item on the sequence. so > perhaps my computer is not capable of booting thumb drive? > > the rest of this email will be about my new toshiba internal > drive, which DOES run grub, but does not boot correctly. > > grub comes up, i select the default debian version. the > kernel loads and starts doing things for 7 seconds. > > (by the way, i was able to notice that around 4 seconds, in > among a whole bunch of usb messages, it says something like > "waiting for encrypted source device...". but there are too > many usb messages and scrolling does not work well so i > could not determine whether that sequence continued.) > > then booting does nothing until 64 seconds. the last boot > messages before this were attaching hard drives (it attached > sda sdb sdc i think; sdc is merely an external usb device). > > then two lines saying USB disconnect, device number #. > > then more messages. > > then drops into a shell, initramfs. the error message is > roughly like the following (transcribed manually, "..." not > in the original). > > Check cryptopts=source= bootarg:cat/proc/command line or > missing modules, device:cat/proc/modules ls/dev > -r ALERT! /dev/disk/by-uuid/a89...32 does not exist > dropping to a shell! > > i do not understand this error message. what does -r mean? that partition > exists. the uuid refers to /dev/sda3 (the raw partition that > contains encrypted root). > > in fact, in the initrd busybox shell, i can do cryptsetup > luksOpen /dev/sda3 toshiba-root. i do not know how or where > to mount it, however. mounting it on / not work. > > that seems to suggest that it exists, in contrast to the error message. > > strangely, despite having dropped into an initramfs shell, > the kernel keeps spewing USB messages every 30 seconds or > so. these start with usb disconnect, then new usb device > and it mentions my mouses and stuff. i have to clear the > screen each time. > > /proc/cmdline says > BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-amd64 root=/dev/mapper/toshibaroot ro > > too many modules to transcribe, but include dm-crypt and dm-mod. > > i would be very grateful for any help. > > i am not subscribed to this list. > -- I rarely can send email, and cannot be counted on to read email, but please feel free to reply. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". 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