Help! (initramfs), fail to boot + grub rescue> + encrypted home

[oldfred]

I see you ran the fsck on the sda1, but you may need to run it on the /mapper after it is mounted and unencrypted.

[Victoria_C.]

I’m sorry, I’m not sure how to mount the mapper, I have been looking for online resources on that like this one, but I’m not sure if its what I’m looking for.

The exact method depends on how you have setup luks, and if you have LVM on top of luks or if you just have a filesystem within the luks volume.

If you don't have LVM in addition to luks then you would probably do something like this.
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/rawdevice somename
fsck /dev/mapper/somename

# or

cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda2 _dev_sda2
fsck /dev/mapper/_dev_sda2
If you used the LVM on LUKS option providied by the Debian/Ubuntu installer, then you'll need to start up LVM. So vgchange -aly after opening the encrypted volume, then run fsck against the /dev/mapper/lvname.

For whatever reason cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/rawdevice somename wasn't working out to give me something to run fsck on, although it was showing up with vgscan just fine after vgchange -ay as 'active'... I had to create the raw devices manually with vgscan --mknodes and then fsck on the logical volume showing up in vgscan with fsck /dev/cryptVG/root - Hope this helps someone else out there

[oldfred]

I know some like LVM, and others need encryption, but I do not use either as they seem too complex. I want reliability and ease of use. Something I can easily understand enough details to repair and use.

I think you posted your mapper as /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root?

[Victoria_C.]

You are right, I would also prefer ease or use and reliability, more so when broke out. Im planning to do a fresh OS install once I get my files (hopefully) and will keep it simple without LVM or Home encryption. I have seen many posts about that home encryption issues lately.

Ohh I think this is it right?

/dev/mapper/sda5_crypt

or is it?

/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root

Both are /mapper? Which one is it? How do I mount it? Then I will need to use this command?

fsck /dev/mapper/sda5_crypt

or

fsck /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root

or is it:

cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda1

Which I think will ask me my password. Then:

fsck /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root

To tell you the truth I dont even know if I have LVM

https://i.imgur.com/mwQ3d.jpg

[oldfred]

I do not not know details of internal of LVM.
You do have LVM as the /dev/mapper shows & all installs with full drive encryption use LVM.

Your sda1 is your /boot partition and is not encrypted, so this cannot be correct.
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda1

But I think you mount the lvm or /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root.
But I do not know how encrypted is shown inside the LVM.

I thought this post showed all the detail commands you need to run in order. And just before he starts on the resizing he mentions you can also do maintenance like fsck.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4530641

[Victoria_C.]

Ok, I think I got this to work:

sudo e2fsck -f /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root

Cause I got a huge continuous list of this, followed by a huge ammount of numbers filling the whole screen.

Free inodes count wrong (15122421, counted=14505550).
Fix<y>? yes

And no I can see what you meant with this since I had to press manually y:

#if errors: -y auto answers yes for fixes needing response, also see man e2fsck
sudo e2fsck -f -y -v /dev/sda1

When it stopped i got this message:

/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vubuntu-mate@ubuntu-mate:~$ sudo e2fsck -f /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root
e2fsck 1.42.12 (29-Aug-2014)
/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root is mounted.
g-root: 616882/15122432 files (2.1% non-contiguous), 50369175/60463104 blocks

I tried to follow the instuctions on the LVM resizing guide that you linked, and I cheked that the file system is intact with e2fsck again:

ubuntu-mate@ubuntu-mate:~$ sudo e2fsck -f -y -v /dev/sda1
e2fsck 1.42.12 (29-Aug-2014)
/dev/sda1 is mounted.
e2fsck: Cannot continue, aborting.

ubuntu-mate@ubuntu-mate:~$ sudo e2fsck -f /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root
e2fsck 1.42.12 (29-Aug-2014)
/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root is mounted.

I displayed the LVM with lvdisplay and got this:

ubuntu-mate@ubuntu-mate:~$ sudo lvdisplay
--- Logical volume ---
LV Path /dev/ubuntu-vg/root
LV Name root
VG Name ubuntu-vg
LV UUID ocMdNU-Ozqn-U8gZ-ejP4-14lA-MxLn-HQDF4L
LV Write Access read/write
LV Creation host, time ubuntu, 2014-11-17 04:17:28 +0000
LV Status available
# open 1
LV Size 230.65 GiB
Current LE 59046
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors auto
- currently set to 256
Block device 252:1

--- Logical volume ---
LV Path /dev/ubuntu-vg/swap_1
LV Name swap_1
VG Name ubuntu-vg
LV UUID 6b1AWV-p0dq-LKPc-aCcM-QijN-hQVV-Ansm06
LV Write Access read/write
LV Creation host, time ubuntu, 2014-11-17 04:17:29 +0000
LV Status available
# open 0
LV Size 1.99 GiB
Current LE 510
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors auto
- currently set to 256
Block device 252:2

And for the first time since this happened, I could see the contents of my original file system, still I cant access to home folder cause I get a warning window with this, but I think its a good sign:

The folder contents could not be displayed.
You do not have the permissions necessary to view the contents of "my file system".

Im about to reboot and find out what is next.

[oldfred]

Sounds like progress.
I think now you know more about LVM & encryption than I do.

With encryption really good regular backups are vital. As once system has corruption, you often cannot recover it and have to revert to backup to restore a new system.