Error: unknown filesystem. grub rescue

Support
7

I agree
Over the course of learning, systems have become unusable (audio has completely stopped except for remote desktop streaming or the computer shuts down after 20~25 minutes and so on) and I needed a computer to work or apply for jobs and such, so I needed to do it at the time but I still had open tabs and and such I wanted to recover but haven’t known how so I avoided the problem.
I have spent time learning other areas on Linux, so I have not known how to merge grub’s/
and I previously duel booted windows but that was causing so much chaos (and I got comfortable with Linux) so I stopped using windows.
I have not touched partitions (other than shrinking them) as I don’t know what will break things.

gives the following

/dev/disk/by-partuuid:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 400 Feb  8 19:07 .
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 180 Feb  8 18:03 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Feb  8 19:07 0358e0af-a2eb-4fd0-bc6d-49ee3563141c -> ../../sdc1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 0c501fd5-1c3b-47ef-981b-96545edbcf6e -> ../../nvme0n1p8
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  16 Feb  8 18:03 0f4eb051-433b-2044-a363-1096a03d94d1 -> ../../nvme0n1p11
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 1cd96ca9-64df-cd48-a310-ec2b9b8a2bd0 -> ../../nvme0n1p2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 2c3bf01a-250c-490e-93a9-38bb27895f51 -> ../../nvme0n1p6
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Feb  8 19:07 2d3c98b9-e8ff-42f0-b20e-3ff65a4514da -> ../../sdc3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Feb  8 18:03 3a0f16b8-8953-0a4c-9b26-6a9a1ad49d1e -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 42f4a4ea-eb5e-ad4a-8e8b-232bec3715fb -> ../../nvme0n1p3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 68805295-4b50-472e-b181-2f7bd75c8e1d -> ../../nvme0n1p7
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 876dc154-b809-48dd-95c0-3978ba09740d -> ../../nvme0n1p5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Feb  8 18:03 94eb2af2-a188-0a4c-8e29-3594e8d5b1b4 -> ../../sda2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Feb  8 19:07 a20ee8f7-e1f0-4294-a4f1-be23fbb3312e -> ../../sdc2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Feb  8 18:03 c8e73050-01 -> ../../sdb1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Feb  8 18:03 c8e73050-02 -> ../../sdb2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 d905d8a8-3e17-cb41-8f7f-d8a4702518ba -> ../../nvme0n1p1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 deed0813-22a2-487f-bb41-be74909d1665 -> ../../nvme0n1p4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 f01a73d2-a4b1-4e07-b744-17cee356ba94 -> ../../nvme0n1p9
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  16 Feb  8 18:03 f88b0138-562e-41f3-a6e6-8492fb5717a5 -> ../../nvme0n1p10

/dev/disk/by-uuid:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 380 Feb  8 19:07 .
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 180 Feb  8 18:03 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 0C93-8D63 -> ../../nvme0n1p2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Feb  8 19:07 0ea0684d-25cc-4253-98ff-1b993cc46e76 -> ../../dm-0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 14FEF434FEF4102A -> ../../nvme0n1p6
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 22C9-043A -> ../../nvme0n1p5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Feb  8 18:03 480d2b75-9789-4800-b8ad-764019c85d26 -> ../../sda2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  16 Feb  8 18:03 6594e3c0-a0da-4392-b75c-e4346956bb75 -> ../../nvme0n1p10
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Feb  8 19:07 6ac4f5ed-a933-4820-9ba8-26dceb17261e -> ../../sdc2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Feb  8 18:03 78B65F9FB65F5D26 -> ../../sdb2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 8397e3da-d5a1-4c76-a9ff-4ce63244bc94 -> ../../nvme0n1p1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 8833-0A87 -> ../../nvme0n1p9
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Feb  8 18:03 8a065abc-8719-4231-9f15-03d795b01065 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Feb  8 18:03 8CBC5DD8BC5DBD80 -> ../../sdb1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 94182B8A182B6A86 -> ../../nvme0n1p8
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  16 Feb  8 18:03 b2683235-d9b1-4a6f-b0fb-141a1ced512c -> ../../nvme0n1p11
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 B29CC5679CC52727 -> ../../nvme0n1p4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 c40ed434-f467-4386-ae24-85f6d8ca6b4b -> ../../nvme0n1p3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Feb  8 18:03 F0F8-3A58 -> ../../nvme0n1p7

both
/boot/efi/EFI/Manjaro/grub.cfg
/EFI/Manjaro/grub.cfg
does not exist
however there is an efi binary
/boot/efi/EFI/Manjaro/grubx64.efi
(can post if needed).
There is nothing else in the /boot/efi/EFI/Manjaro/ tree

8

Normally you just reinstall grub: GRUB/Restore the GRUB Bootloader - Manjaro

9

Ill try to reply again tomorrow as it is past midnight now here.

Until then think about what you like to do:

  1. A Total wipe of your SSD and start from scratch using a fresh GPT partitioning and new partitions?
  2. Want to manually copy over stuff from one partition on your SSD to another one on same SSD.
    Plus remove the Micro$@$ partitions.
    This will be a LONG and HARD job…
  3. Something else.

Let me know in mean time :wink:

1 Like
10

Okay let me continue and lets extract and combine the info we have so far:

  1. Your UEFI-BIOS is set to boot your Manjaro from /dev/nvme0n1p2

  2. You mount your $ESP from /dev/nvme0n1p2 at /boot/efi

  3. You mount your root filesystem / from /dev/nvme0n1p11

  4. You mount your home filesystem /home from /dev/sda2

  5. Your swap partition is /dev/sda1

  6. Setting in grub menu entries:

    • Manjaro Linux

    • Manjaro Linux (Kernel: 5.19.17-2-MANJARO x64)

    • Manjaro Linux (Kernel: 5.19.17-2-MANJARO x64 - fallback initramfs)

    • Manjaro Linux (Kernel: 5.15.91-1-MANJARO x64)

    • Manjaro Linux (Kernel: 5.15.91-1-MANJARO x64 - fallback initramfs)

    • Other entries from 30_os-prober using /dev/nvme0n1p3
      (Skipped because they are either irrelevant/old/extra installs…)

11

With the info from my previous reply we can conclude:

  1. We only have to consider these SSD partitions from your current system:
    • /dev/nvme0n1p2 for the kernel, initrd and as ESP.
    • /dev/nvme0n1p11 for your root filesystem
  2. All the EFI-type partitions on the SSD should be merged into /dev/nvme0n1p1 because that is the only one that an UEFI-BIOS will consider by default.
    (It only considers the first ESP per device)
    See: The UEFI-Bios section of my tutorial.
  3. All the Micro$@$ specific partitions on the SSD can be removed because we wont use that OS…
    This will gain us at least 529*3= 1587MB [±1.5GB] plus possibly 3*100MB from the related EFI partitions, totaling ±1.8GB.
  4. To accomplish these tasks we should be using a LIVE-USB to boot.
    That way we can backup stuff from one place to another on the SSD without crippling the system we work on.

Things to do:

  1. Temporarily mount /dev/nvme0n1p11 somewhere so we can modify it as needed.
  2. Temporarily mount all the ESP’s on the SSD in turn, to copy their contents into a sub-dir of (1).
  3. Delete all partitions on the SSD EXCEPT /dev/nvme0n1p11 which will hold our current system and EFI backups.
  4. Create a new /dev/nvme0n1p1 as ESP partition, with enough space to hold the contents of the EFI backups in (2)
    This needs to be a FAT32 partition.
  5. Create a new /dev/nvme0n1p2 as root filesystem partition to hold everything from /dev/nvme0n1p11 minus the EFI backups.
    I would suggest formatting this partition as a BTRFS filesystem as it will be easier to expand.
    But that is your own choice…
  6. Change the fstab of the new system in /dev/nvme0n1p2 to use:
    • /dev/nvme0n1p1 as /boot/efi
    • /dev/nvme0n1p2 as root filesystem /.
  7. Configure and use sd-boot as bootloader in /dev/nvme0n1p1 to help initial booting into the new system because it is way easier to configure as Grub until we are able to regenerate the Grub config.
  8. Change the UEFI-BIOS boot entry, to use /dev/nvme0n1p1 as boot partition, using efibootmgr and the bootloader to use.
  9. Chroot into /dev/nvme0n1p1 and regenerate the initrd so the above changes will be used while booting.
  10. Try to boot from (8) and fix eventual problems that went wrong.
  11. If all went “Okay” we can delete /dev/nvme0n1p11 and enlarge /dev/nvme0n1p2 to use all available space left on the SSD.

As you can see this is a hard road to walk and is your choice if you don’t want to start with a fresh install after resetting the SSD’s partitioning.
:vulcan_salute:

1 Like
12

I need to learn at some point so no better time and I am happy to learn as much as I can.

So I have been reading through the
The UEFI-Bios
and have learned things from it but there was nothing about rebuilding or merging partition.
So far I have the following remaining

nvme0n1p1         34   4196351   4196318     2G ext4 Partuuid-d905d8a8-3e17-cb41-8f7f-d8a4702518ba uuid-8397e3da-d5a1-4c76-a9ff-4ce63244bc94
nvme0n1p3   12584960 548937727 536352768 255.8G ext4 Partuuid-42f4a4ea-eb5e-ad4a-8e8b-232bec3715fb uuid-c40ed434-f467-4386-ae24-85f6d8ca6b4b
nvme0n1p11 730861567 976773134 245911568 117.3G ext4 Partuuid-0f4eb051-433b-2044-a363-1096a03d94d1 uuid-b2683235-d9b1-4a6f-b0fb-141a1ced512c

I have backed up the contents of

nvme0n1p1
nvme0n1p2
nvme0n1p10

From what I learnt in the past and now your guide

and

the first EFI boot should be FAT, however the first EFI boot should be FAT, however nvme0n1p1 is ext4 so based on that I should not be able to boot however, it now tries to boot into my old manjaro system (I can tell as its manjaro loading screen would always not render in the correct resolution) but never manages to, so I am more lost as there are no FAT partitions on any drive in the system.

I have been trying to do the list of thing to do but have been getting stuck

So far I have wiped nvme0n1p1 and replaced it with a FAT32 partition and have updated the fstab (I believe correctly)

I was intending to keep both nvme0n1p3 and nvme0n1p11 for the moment(I am only working on fixing nvme0n1p11 for the moment to not complicate things).

I am unsure of what sd-boot is

I am unsure of what sd-boot is but I am booting into a majaro live system so cant I use that to boot and then manjaro-chroot in to it?

on both live and chroot when putting efibootmgr I get the following.

EFI variables are not supported on this system.

when looking this up almost every result is redhat related (and account locked) and the ones that dont say to use something called dracut?

I havent been able to do some of the prevous steps so got grub rescue
but when entering

I now get

error: file '/boot/grub/i386-pc/normal.mod' not found.

fdisk -l
now gives the following

Disk /dev/sda: 223.57 GiB, 240057409536 bytes, 468862128 sectors
Disk model: KINGSTON SV300S3
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 6417DBB6-7CE4-3548-B55D-6D731B19974E

Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1  321538048 468856991 147318944  70.2G Linux swap
/dev/sda2       2048 321538047 321536000 153.3G Linux filesystem

Partition table entries are not in disk order.


Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 465.76 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: WDS500G2X0C-00L350
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: BEE49EBE-AC08-4F84-926F-D695E5160D07

Device              Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1       2048   8390655   8388608     4G EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p3   12584960 548937727 536352768 255.8G Linux filesystem
/dev/nvme0n1p11 730861567 976773134 245911568 117.3G Linux filesystem


Disk /dev/sdc: 115.5 GiB, 124017180672 bytes, 242221056 sectors
Disk model: DataTraveler 3.0
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x3e951a66

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1  *         2048 242155519 242153472 115.5G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdc2       242155520 242221055     65536    32M ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)


Disk /dev/mapper/ventoy: 3.57 GiB, 3837536256 bytes, 7495188 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device                   Boot   Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/mapper/ventoy-part1 *         64 7486995 7486932  3.6G  0 Empty
/dev/mapper/ventoy-part2      7486996 7495187    8192    4M ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)


Disk /dev/loop0: 29.7 MiB, 31137792 bytes, 60816 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop1: 896.48 MiB, 940027904 bytes, 1835992 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop2: 1.87 GiB, 2007453696 bytes, 3920808 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop3: 739.35 MiB, 775262208 bytes, 1514184 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

and /etc/fstab
contains the following

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a device; this may
# be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices that works even if
# disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system>             <mount point>  <type>  <options>  <dump>  <pass>
UUID=F7CE-D10A                              /boot/efi                   vfat    umask=0077                                                                                                                                        0 2
UUID=b2683235-d9b1-4a6f-b0fb-141a1ced512c   /                           ext4    noatime                                                                                                                                           0 1
UUID=480d2b75-9789-4800-b8ad-764019c85d26   /home                       ext4    noatime                                                                                                                                           0 2
UUID=8a065abc-8719-4231-9f15-03d795b01065   swap                        swap    noatime                                                                                                                                           0 0
tmpfs                                       /tmp                        tmpfs   noatime,mode=1777                                                                                                                                 0 0
//192.168.10.90/Media                       /home/waffel360/nas/Media   cifs    rw,uid=1000,gid=1000,user=waffel360,vers=3.0,noauto,noserverino,x-systemd.automount,x-systemd.mount-timeout=30,_netdev,credentials=/home/waffel360/nas/smbcred   0 0

Thank you for your time.

13

I hope others can help you more indepth, because i don’t have the time to do so due to: Earthquake Humanitarian Aid Campaign / https://en.afad.gov.tr/earthquake-campaign
(Earthquake in Turkey)

1 Like
14

link is dead, but searched it
all good, keep your self well

1 Like
15

So its been a while and had not been able to look at the pc due to life thing’s but if anyone still has any input I would love to hear it as I would still like to learn what to do and how not to do it again.

16

What about including this into your Grub file (until you found a better solution)
:footprints:

17

Sure, I can take over and try to help.

It’s a pretty long thread, I skimmed through it but it’s easy to miss things so lets start with another look at your filesystem.
If you don’t mind I prefere lsblk.

I assume you have a usb you can boot with.
Boot with live usb and run following:

$ lsblk -f

It seems you have most things done, we just have to make absolutely sure.
I prefer you use a usb rather than editing your grub to boot.

Then depending on how that looks, we go from there.

18 
[manjaro manjaro]# lsblk -f
NAME   FSTYPE FSVER LABEL            UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
loop0  squash 4.0                                                               0   100% /run/miso/sfs/livefs
loop1  squash 4.0                                                               0   100% /run/miso/sfs/mhwdfs
loop2  squash 4.0                                                               0   100% /run/miso/sfs/desktopfs
loop3  squash 4.0                                                               0   100% /run/miso/sfs/rootfs
sda
├─sda1 swap   1                      8a065abc-8719-4231-9f15-03d795b01065
└─sda2 ext4   1.0                    480d2b75-9789-4800-b8ad-764019c85d26   23.9G    79% /run/media/manjaro/480d2b75-9789-4800-b8ad-764019c85d26
sdb
├─sdb1 exfat  1.0   Ventoy           151E-0EA3
│ └─ventoy
│      iso966 Jolie MANJARO_KDE_2304 2023-10-15-12-00-38-00                     0   100% /run/miso/bootmnt
└─sdb2 vfat   FAT16 VTOYEFI          301E-EA1C
nvme0n1

├─nvme0n1p1
│      vfat   FAT32 ESP              F7CE-D10A
├─nvme0n1p3
│      ext4   1.0                    c40ed434-f467-4386-ae24-85f6d8ca6b4b
└─nvme0n1p11
       ext4   1.0                    b2683235-d9b1-4a6f-b0fb-141a1ced512c   53.3G    48% /run/media/manjaro/b2683235-d9b1-4a6f-b0fb-141a1ced512c
19

also thank you for your time

1 Like
20

No worries, ppl with manners get all the time in the world from me (within limits)

So.
Ok, cool.

Just a few things more then we move on.
Can you clarify for me if you set the flags on the fat32 partition to efi and boot?

Please clearify what partitions that are root, boot and home (to make ABSOLUTELY sure we are on the same page here.

Then consider, if you haven’t already done this, if you want to add the space you got back after deleteing all the partitions to your root or home. (do not do it yet if you haven’t!)

Please clarify for me if you have backed up your root.

Edit
Not to confuse you, in gparted efi is called esp.

21

if by that you mean nvme0n1p1 then it is set as esp and boot

Been a while but after checking it would be

Boot - nvme0n1p1
Root - nvme0n1p11
Home - sda2

I haven’t done anything with the space, so it is still unallocated where nvme 2 and 4-10 was previously

If I did it may be lost to time

22

Ok.

When it comes to resizing partitions, there is always a risk, but in my experience its pretty darn small since I have not had any trouble with it for years. But there is a minimal risk.
Unless you in the very close future use that space, I would recommend you use gparted, unmount the drives and resize root partition to not having free space before or after.

I will assume you know how to do this otherwise tell me and I hold your hand a bit.

OR if you prefer not doing it at all, tell me and we move forward.

23

not fussed at expanding it at the moment, but if needed or when the time arises I can do.
If needed I do have storage space off of that pc and/ extra drives if needed to dump stuff off.

24

No problem, I was asking because now would be a perfect environment to add the space to root, you wont be able to do that if you have it mounted.

Also had the idea to help you name your partitions so they have names in dolphin instead of nvme0n1p11. But no worries, lets move on.

Unmount everything you have mounted in dolphin.

And mount root, in terminal:

sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p11 /mnt

Then make sure UUID of root, home, boot and swap are the same in fstab.

sudo nano /mnt/etc/fstab

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

25

Made an assumption that it would be, as there was no matching flags and nothing was mentioned in the past but I should not assume.

Never even occurred to me that it would be a thing but as i was under the impression that is was meant to be somewhat static, similar to uuid for things like fstab.
Would like to learn about it and if there are any good practices for them.

They all match

26

Just label the filesystems in gparted with the name you want them to have. I think you named your boot to ESP f.ex.

Lets try with manjaro-chroot and see how it reacts, but before that, unmount root from /mnt

sudo umount /mnt
sudo manjaro-chroot -a

Edit
In the future, instead of saying “they are the same” press the </> and then pate something to confirm the fact, in this case your fstab file.

SO much easier for us here giving support to ACTUALLY confirm. It’s not about not trusting you, there can be small errors you did not think of. :slight_smile: