My Ubuntu Gutsy won't boot!!!
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 | Labels: Ubuntu | |So here's the story. I never had a boot splash for my Ubuntu on my laptop. A simple googling, I found out that I had to modify my usplash.conf.
sudo gedit /etc/usplash.conf
# Usplash configuration file
xres=640
yres=480
I changed the resolution to 640x480 (even 800x600 won't work). After that I regenerated the init file.
sudo update-initramfs -u -k `uname -r`
The good thing about this tool is; it creates a backup copy of your /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic. The backup file name has .bak at the end.
After that was done, I rebooted my laptop and...
KERNEL PANIC!!! It won't mount the root filesystem! Argh!!!
A few weeks ago, I created a bootable Ubuntu on a thumbdrive. So I went off looking for the owner of the thumbdrive. Luckily he was around and after a few minutes, I was using my laptop running on Ubuntu LiveTHUMBDRIVE.
First, to look for my root partition to mount.
cd /dev/disk/by-id && ls -l
And there were a bunch of things like:
ata-IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H
ata-IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H-part1
ata-IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H-part3
ata-IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H-part4
scsi-1ATA_IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H
scsi-1ATA_IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H-part1
scsi-1ATA_IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H-part3
scsi-1ATA_IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H-part4
ata-IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H-part1
ata-IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H-part3
ata-IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H-part4
scsi-1ATA_IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H
scsi-1ATA_IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H-part1
scsi-1ATA_IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H-part3
scsi-1ATA_IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H-part4
But of course I couldn't remember which one is my root FS. So I tembak-tembak (guessing game) with the mount command. I already know for sure that my FS is ext3.
mkdir ~/hdd
sudo mount -t ext3 ata-IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H ~/hdd
sudo mount -t ext3 ata-IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H ~/hdd
Failed, and then:
sudo mount -t ext3 ata-IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H-part1 ~/hdd
Failed, and...
sudo mount -t ext3 ata-IC25N020ATMR04-0_MRG157K1DAS42H-part3 ~/hdd
And it worked!!! Yatta!!!
So I accessed my root partition.
cd ~/hdd
I thought that the initrd is corrupted or something, so I went off and do:
sudo mv initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic.backup2
sudo mv initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic.backup initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic
sudo mv initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic.backup initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic
After that I rebooted...
And I can boot again! Yea!!! I recreated the initrd file.
sudo update-initramfs -u -k `uname -r`
And rebooted again.
And finally!! I finally get my Ubuntu splash screen!! I had a fair share of experience in Windows in situations where I couldn't boot Windows. Common solution would be to reboot into SAFE MODE and try to restore a RESTORE POINT. If that fails, its time to backup my files and reformat. I am so glad I don't have to go through that in a Linux environment.
Happy Linux-ing!
this post deserves a bookmark! you just saved me from reinstalling my ubuntu all over again! the exact same thing happened to me and i was already on the brink of giving up when i found this blog of yours! i'll definitely mention this in the community! so many many many many thanks!