{"id":193,"date":"2010-01-26T07:08:57","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T07:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/?p=193"},"modified":"2023-07-14T18:44:03","modified_gmt":"2023-07-14T18:44:03","slug":"fixing-linux-when-it-gave-up-waiting-for-a-root-device","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/technology\/fixing-linux-when-it-gave-up-waiting-for-a-root-device\/","title":{"rendered":"Fixing Linux when it “gave up waiting for a root device”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Recently I was installing Kubuntu 9.10 (also known as Karmic Koala) when my system refused to boot. I was informed that my system had “given up waiting for a root device.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there’s a simple solution!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I suspect many of you may be in a similar situation and that’s why you’re here. Let’s first consider the “gave up waiting for root device” error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does it all mean? Well, your boot loader was trying to see if your main hard drive (i.e. “root device”) was starting up. But guess what? It didn’t start — probably because it wasn’t there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But I didn’t take it out!” you exclaim, because you’re not stupid enough to take your hard drive out of your computer and then be surprised when it doesn’t work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, the problem is because your computer couldn’t find<\/em> your drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You’ve got to fix the boot loader, and you have two options. If you’re lucky like me, your computer drops to a “Busy box” shell on this type of error. This is a sort of bare minimum shell that does just enough to get your computer running. If this happens, you’ll see some instructions on the screen regarding Busy box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Use Busy box to access your drive<\/b>
Here’s what to do if you’re using the Busy box command line:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Create a new folder to mount your hard drive.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    \n

    mkdir \/drive<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    1. Mount your hard drive to the folder you just made.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
      \n

      mount \/dev\/sda1 \/drive<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

        \n
      1. In my example, my hard drive was located at \/dev\/sda1 and I suspect this is pretty normal. Your drive may be sda2, sdb1, sdd0… who knows! It may take a few tries. If you guessed the number incorrectly, you can always try again by unmounting and then going back to step 2. Here’s how you unmount your drive:
        \n

        umount \/drive<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n

      2. Make your hard drive the root so we can fix it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
        \n

        chroot \/drive<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

        From here you can use nano, emacs, or vi to fix your problem. Skip below for more info.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        Without Busy box<\/b>
        If you’re not lucky enough to get Busy box prompt, you can always boot off of a Linux Live boot CD. The regular Ubuntu install CD can be used in live boot mode, as can Knoppix. When you boot off of that CD you’ll be taken to a full-fledged Linux environment where you can fix your problem in the same way. Your hard drive should be easily accessible, probably with a nice GUI and everything. Just open the drive and you’re ready to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        What to do next<\/b>
        If you have a similar problem as me, the official Ubuntu 9.10 KarmicUpgrades doc has a resolution<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        Otherwise, try Googling around some more. It’s probably a very similar boot loader issue that can be fixed easily once you’ve completed the above steps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Recently I was installing Kubuntu 9.10 (also known as Karmic Koala) when my system refused to boot. I was informed that my system had “given […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","slim_seo":{"title":"Fixing Linux when it \"gave up waiting for a root device\" - MrEricSir.com","description":"Recently I was installing Kubuntu 9.10 (also known as Karmic Koala) when my system refused to boot. I was informed that my system had \"given up waiting for a ro"},"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","autoblue_publish_document":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[102,99,101,100],"class_list":["post-193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-busybox","tag-linux","tag-rootdevice","tag-ubuntu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10517,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions\/10517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}