Linux mint cinnamon 21 btw. I updated a bunch of applications yesterday. I couldn’t tell you what got updated, I’m sorry. It was a bunch of stuff after not having updated much for several months.
(Edit: according to the modified date of my config files in /boot/, I might not’ve updated anything since January ):
On boot, I get the usual welcome from the motherboard screen:
AMIBIOS©2023 American Megatrends, Inc. ASUS PRIME B65OM-A AX ACPI BIOS Revision 1616
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 8-Core Processor Speed: 4500MHz
Total Memory: 32768MB (DDR5-4800)
USB Devices total: 0 Drive, 4 Keyboards, 3 Mice, 3 Hubs
Detected Storages…
SATA6G_1: Samsung SSD 860 EVO 2TB
SATA6G_2: HDC HD6OEFZX-68B3FNO
SATA6G_3: WDC WD6OEFRK-68LOBN1
SATA6G_4: WDC WDS200T2BOA
M.2_2: Samsung SSD 990 PRO with Heatsink 1TB
In case it’s relevant, the gpu is a MSI 6700xt. I’m not sure why it says 4 keyboards & 3 mice, but I do have a lot of USB cables plugged into the back for various reasons (maybe 8? 10?).
Then there appear these error messages for a few seconds:
0.3400851 pci 0000:10:00.0: Failed to read data
1.0549851 hub 8-0:1.0: config failed, hub doesn’t have any ports! (err -19)
3.5725731 usb usb1-port6: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
Then the monitor goes black (like, no signal black).
What should I do/check?
BRB, looking to see if I can still ssh into my pc with my windows laptop
EDIT UPDATE: I checked my pc’s IP address on the router. It’s connected to the router via ethernet, and it’s detected, Mac address provided and all. Even thought it seems connected to my router, and it’s powered on, I’m still not getting a response.
I’m trying to ssh with windows powershell on win10. “ssh blindfrog(notmyactualusername)@localipaddress” and all.
ssh: connect to host localipaddress port22: Connection timed out
If anything, I’m fine with replacing parts if I have to, even my drives. My /home and other important files are backed up to my NAS
UPDATE: I booted off a USB stick with Mint, found the initrd.img on my desktop pc under /boot/
There’s a lot of versions of initrd listed, it looks like? They were all last modified the time of my update spree yesterday. How do I inspect them?
Right clicking, I don’t get an option to “mount” them, nor am I sure how to do it in terminal. Opening the folder in terminal, then doing just “mount initrd.img” gets me:
mount: initrd.img: can’t find in /etc/fstab.
Gonna try to get to my pc’s bootloader :u
UPDATE: Found grub config file in my pc under: /etc/default/grub.d/50_linuxmint.cfg
I followed these instructions and added these lines to the end of the file:
GRUB_TIMEOUT="5"
GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE="menu"
Now I’m stuck on how to “sudo update-grub”, but do it for the desktop pc, not my bootable usb stick, lol
UPDATE: Found this resource involving chroot. I followed the “Manual Grub Restoration Method,” but first had to unmount the automatically mounted drive to emulate the instructions.
I had a problem at step 4, after successfully doing
sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
I’m getting the response for each of the other bind commands:
sudo: unable to allocate pty: No such device
According to this source, I used --rbind instead at the first source’s step 4, but kept getting the same “can’t allocate pty” message.
UPDATE: Skipped all the above and went to chroot the automatically mounted drive with my OS
sudo chroot /media/mount/lotsoflettersandnumbers /bin/bash
Success! But “sudo update-grub” gets me:
/usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig: 37: /usr/share/grub/grub-mkconfig_lib: cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied
/usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for / (is /dev mounted?)
I’m not sure how to properly set up my system before chroot so update-grub will work
So I can get to my desktop’s bootloader
So I can see if there’s something to help me recover the previous kernel with sufficient drivers
If I don’t have any leads on this adventure by tomorrow morning, I’ll just reinstall with Mint 23 v.v
Sneak edit: I swear on my life one of the update notifications was the release of Linux Mint 23, but nowhere can I find it online now. I skipped it after my million updates because I didn’t want to break anything; figured Mint 21 support was probably expiring soon & I’d look up people’s takes on the new version before updating to it-- but now it doesn’t exist?
It sounds like perhaps there are either drivers missing from your initrd or kernel parameters from your boot loader. Is it possible for you to select the previous kernel setup from the boot loader? If not, the next step would be a rescue USB stick so you could start debugging both of those.
A rescue usb stick? Like, boot off the usb stick? I have one! It looks like my mobo works fine, gonna boot off the stick, but not sure what next steps to look up.
“how to check for drivers for initrd kernel”? I’m really not sure
The bootloader? Like the kernel for my os would be backed up to the motherboard? I’m sorry if I’m not understanding.
Full disclosure, I’ve never actually used mint specifically and I’m providing guidance from a more generalized perspective that would be applicable to any Linux distribution. You may have to research the specifics for your OS.
Before I get into all of this, I should start by saying that it may be easier at your present skill level to perform an new installation over top your existing (no formatting). Your best bet though is booting to the previous kernel.
The bootloader is a tiny program installed on the first bits of your bootable disk slice. It can often present a menu to select different kernel / initrd (also called a initramfs) combinations that are available on that bootable slice. This menu can be hidden and only display if a key is pressed on what is typically a completely blank screen or perhaps just a small flash on the screen before kernel messages start displaying.
It’s not so much that a backup of a kernel / initrd gets made but rather a new bootloader menu configuration, kernel and initrd image are added. This leaves the previous boot setup available for just this kind of scenario. The bootloader menu may also have a “Rescue” or similar option available. If you’re unable to access this menu, it adds to the complexity of booting to the existing installation.
If you’re booting to a rescue image on a USB stick hopefully there’s a repair or rescue process available on it. What you’d be looking to accomplish once booted to a workable space is to have a recovery process detect your hardware, generate the proper boot configuration with initrd containing all the appropriate supporting software. While it is possible to do this by hand that is a bit much to explain in comments.
Thank you, this was way more educational than I hoped for. I think I have enough info to futs around and get to the bootloader. If no dice, I’ll do a fresh install like you recommended ;^^ Yo, thank you again for your time to help
No problem! Good luck and remember to be patient throughout this process. Regardless of how it turns out, you will have learned a lot.
