Re: Busybox (inframs) error.
Hi
If you have a separate home partition then you can reinstall Ubuntu into the root partition. That's one of the benefits of a separate home partition. Just remember to format the root partition only and not the home partition. You need to select the advanced option on the partition page on the installer to do this.
As for your Busybox error, can you post a screen shot of what is has on the screen when it fails ? It sounds like it may not be able to find the root partition but this is only a guess without looking.
Kind regards
Re: Busybox (inframs) error.
Dropping to busybox can happen for a number of reasons. It means that the kernel and initrd sucessfully loaded from your /boot...but some problem prevent loading of the main system.
It could be a misconfigured grub, pointing to a root (/) directory that doesn't exist.
It could be a hardware failure, causing the new / to not exist.
It could be a corrupted install, causing /sbin/init to not exist or be unreadable.
It could be a misconfigured install, causing /sbin/init to be in a different location.
It could be a corrupted filesystem, enabling you to run fsck on the unmounted root filesystem.
The purpose of dropping to busybox is to enable you to identify which of these (or something else) is the real problem, and -if possible- repair it. You can also exit busybox (CTRL+D) and try to continue the boot sequence, preferably after such a repair.
Re: Busybox (inframs) error.
@matt_sysmes , lol you remember ? you teach me Busy Box .
well @op please the log for knowing what cause the Error .
Re: Busybox (inframs) error.
Thanks for your replies, i've not had access to the laptop in question for the last couple of days, so havn't been able o get any more info. i will post it when i have it. my main issue here is that if i do need to do a fresh install (which will probably be what ends up happening)i will probably still not be able to access /home, as i can't seem to access it when running a live distro. regarding the original install, it was a clean 10.04 install which i 'upgraded' to 11.10 about six months ago, any has been working fine up until now, so i think it's unlikely to be a mis-configuration issue / install issue.
thanks again for the responses, i'll post up some log info when i get hold of it (i wonder of not being able to mount /home would prevent the system from booting up as it has account info in? then again, i also can't boot to the recovery console, which i guess should be logging into root).
Re: Busybox (inframs) error.
hello everyone, so, i finally got hold of the laptop again (sorry for prematurely starting this thread) and am going to have another go at sorting it out. here are some pics:
the verbose output spinning before dropping to the inframs shell:
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/7876/spinningq.jpg
the inframs shell, into which i have entered 'exit':
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/8927/inframserror.jpg
i should also point out that when i tried Ctr-D i got this same error, although missing the first line of output (the one starting with "init: line 331: can't locate /root/dev/console"). also the caps-lock key light seemed to be flashing throughout this. the machine dual boots with windows, which is still working.
thanks for any suggestions for what i should try, or any insightful reading of these messages. i have the suspicion that it may be the symptom of a corrupt hard disk.
Re: Busybox (inframs) error.
Hi
You are getting device ready errors on your hard drive.
You are also having a kernel panic when writing to the drive. The kernel itself is crashing. This is not a good sign.
Before doing anything, i would boot into a liveCD/USB and run a SMART check on the disc itself. This will check the integrity of the hardware itself.
From a terminal in a live CD session
Code:
sudo apt-get install smartmontools
Code:
sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sda
Change sda as required for your set up.
After it has finished
Code:
sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda
and post the output back here.
Do that before anything. This may well be hardware. How old is the drive ?
Also can you boot into an older kernel and when did this start happening (recently, after a kernel update) ?
Kind regards
Re: Busybox (inframs) error.
hi matt,
thanks for your detailed reply, i have followed you're instructions, and here is the output, sorry if it's a bit long (also sorry it took me a while to get back to you, i was at work):
Code:
smartctl version 5.38 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: ST9160827AS
Serial Number: 5RF13581
Firmware Version: 3.AAA
User Capacity: 160,041,885,696 bytes
Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is: 8
ATA Standard is: ATA-8-ACS revision 4
Local Time is: Thu Apr 5 18:28:32 2012 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
See vendor-specific Attribute list for marginal Attributes.
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 116) The previous self-test completed having
the read element of the test failed.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 426) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
No Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
No General Purpose Logging support.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 64) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x0001) SCT Status supported.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 253 006 Pre-fail Always - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 100 099 000 Pre-fail Always - 0
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 099 099 020 Old_age Always - 1916
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 081 060 030 Pre-fail Always - 141260476
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 091 091 000 Old_age Always - 8160
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 034 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 099 099 020 Old_age Always - 2019
187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
189 High_Fly_Writes 0x003a 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 1110
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 055 039 045 Old_age Always In_the_past 45 (0 15 61 11)
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 383
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 967
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0022 070 070 000 Old_age Always - 61381
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x001a 045 061 000 Old_age Always - 45 (0 11 0 0)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x0012 067 055 000 Old_age Always - 149952893
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0010 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 1
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x003e 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 1
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0000 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 1
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0
202 TA_Increase_Count 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
SMART Error Log Version: 1
ATA Error Count: 1
CR = Command Register [HEX]
FR = Features Register [HEX]
SC = Sector Count Register [HEX]
SN = Sector Number Register [HEX]
CL = Cylinder Low Register [HEX]
CH = Cylinder High Register [HEX]
DH = Device/Head Register [HEX]
DC = Device Command Register [HEX]
ER = Error register [HEX]
ST = Status register [HEX]
Powered_Up_Time is measured from power on, and printed as
DDd+hh:mm:SS.sss where DD=days, hh=hours, mm=minutes,
SS=sec, and sss=millisec. It "wraps" after 49.710 days.
Error 1 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 34 hours (1 days + 10 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.
After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
84 51 00 46 57 73 40 Error: ICRC, ABRT at LBA = 0x00735746 = 7558982
Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
25 00 20 27 57 73 40 00 00:38:14.404 READ DMA EXT
25 00 20 47 57 73 40 00 00:38:14.402 READ DMA EXT
25 00 20 67 57 73 40 00 00:38:14.401 READ DMA EXT
25 00 20 87 57 73 40 00 00:38:14.400 READ DMA EXT
25 00 20 a7 57 73 40 00 00:38:14.399 READ DMA EXT
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed: read failure 40% 8158 220106913
SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
the hard disk is not that old, it is a hard disk i got in new york about four years ago (and used as a replacement about two years ago, when the original started to fail ). as far as i know i did nothing like an upgrade, or anything that might have made a change before rebooting it, also i can't start it with the previous kernel.
thanks for any help, or suggestions, although i think this may very well be a hardware issue.
Re: Busybox (inframs) error.
Hi
Quote:
Self-test execution status: ( 116) The previous self-test completed having
the read element of the test failed.
It looks like the hard drive has failed.
Kind regards
Re: Busybox (inframs) error.
thanks matt, i figured that it was probably that, i guess i'm going to format it and reinstall, even though the hard disk is probably finished and it will probably recur. hope you're having fun over the bank holiday weekend.