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bisc19
December 4th, 2009, 10:42 PM
I just upgraded from 9.04 to 9.1 and when it tries to boot up, I get this message:

init: ureadahead main process (2737) terminated with status 5
mountall:/proc: unable to mount: Device or resource busy
mountall:/proc/self/mountinfo: No such file or directory
mountall: root filesystem isn't mounted
init: mountall main process (2738 ) terminated with status 1
General error mounting filesystems.
A maintenance shell will now be started.
CONTROL-D will terminate this shell and re-try.
Give root password for maintenance
(or type Control-D to continue):

If it's any help, my grub is on a different drive to this new 9.1 installation but that has never mattered for upgrades before.

Any ideas?

HighInBC
December 29th, 2009, 08:18 PM
I just upgraded Ubuntu Server Jaunty to Karmic and now I cannot boot.

I am having the same issue described above:



Begin: Running /scripts/init-bottom ...
Done.
init: ureadahead main process (2166) terminated with status 5
mountall:/proc: unable to mount: Device or resource busy
mountall:/proc/self/mountinfo: No such file or directory
mountall: root filesystem isn't mounted
init: mountall main process (2167) terminated with status 1
General error mounting filesystems.
A maintenance shell will now be started.
CONTROL-D will terminate this shell and re-try.
Give root password for maintenance
(or type Control-D to continue):

This is a remote server and it does not have a root password so I am not sure how to get into it.

Can someone please tell me how to rescue this system, I am running a few websites on this which are now down and I don't fancy recovering from backup on a fresh server.

Update:

I found a way to get in using my hosting providers rescue mode which allows me to boot from a rescue image and mount the machine's hard drives. I still do not know how to fix this issue now that I am in. I have read a few bug reports on this but no solution is provided.

y.hahn
February 1st, 2010, 01:54 PM
I got the same error but successfully rescued the system.

I found out that the problem was in the grub menu file (/boot/grub/menu.lst). Somehow, the file was outdated and did not list the kernels I have in /boot.

So, I simply edited the menu.lst file:

For example, if you have only old kernels in your menu.lst:

title Ubuntu 9.4, kernel 2.6.22-15-server
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-15-server root=UUID=### ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-15-server

But you have 2.6.31-17-generic kernel in your /boot for example.

Simply replace above lines to:

title Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-17-generic
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-17-generic root=UUID=### ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-17-generic

(Actually, you don't need to edit the 'title' line)
And then, reboot the system.

When your system is up, run "sudo update-grub" to update the menu.lst

HighInBC
February 1st, 2010, 05:44 PM
Thank you very much for the solution to this problem. I tore down the old system and rebuild it from backup a few weeks back but perhaps this information will save other people the trouble.

Freak Of Nature
February 5th, 2010, 04:10 PM
I got the same error but successfully rescued the system.

I found out that the problem was in the grub menu file (/boot/grub/menu.lst). Somehow, the file was outdated and did not list the kernels I have in /boot.

So, I simply edited the menu.lst file:

For example, if you have only old kernels in your menu.lst:

title Ubuntu 9.4, kernel 2.6.22-15-server
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-15-server root=UUID=### ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-15-server

But you have 2.6.31-17-generic kernel in your /boot for example.

Simply replace above lines to:

title Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-17-generic
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-17-generic root=UUID=### ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-17-generic

(Actually, you don't need to edit the 'title' line)
And then, reboot the system.

When your system is up, run "sudo update-grub" to update the menu.lst
Wow Y.Hahn,

That worked a treat. For Noobs like me we sure appreciate an concise easy to follow fix.

1000 thanks,
Kind regards,
Noel