Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(8,17)

[handy]

Updated system (–repo) today, it recommended that I restart due to core components having been upgraded. So I did.

I now can not boot with either the LTS kernel or the new kernel 6.***.

I get the following kernel panic:

Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(8,17)

I used arch-chroot & reinstalled GRUB2 & did the grub.cfg thing. Makes no difference?

Not getting any useful info’ when I search the web, so here I am.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Some system info:

Using Legacy - BIOS - GRUB2

sda: NTFS - Windows stuff
sdb1: ext4 - EOS /boot/grub/grub.cfg (NO /boot partition)
sdc: NTFS - Windows stuff

[pebcak]

You could try rebuilding your initramfs and see if you can get your system working again.

arch-chroot into your installed system and run:

mkinitcpio -P

If you get any error message post it back here.
Quit chroot

exit

and reboot.

If that won’t work, I would try re- installing my kernels in chroot.

[handy]

@pebcak, thanks for your reply.
I chrooted & ran mkinitcpio -P , exited rebooted to the same kernel panic.

Then, again chrooted to reinstall the 2 kernels, exited/rebooted & got the exactly the same kernel panic?

The machine ran win7 for many hours yesterday (after the kernel panic). It is an EOS install problem.

I hope I don’t have to reinstall, I’ve spent a couple of days setting the system up…

(Now I remember what I’d forgotten about the rolling release package management system & why I’ve lost so many linux skills whilst using MX for the past >4.5 years. lol )

As I continue to age & my faculties deteriorate I am drawn ever closer to the Apple OS retirement home… lol

[mbod]

@handy

I chrooted & ran mkinitcpio -P , exited rebooted to the same kernel panic.

Can you please show the content of /boot. All of it please. recursive, with timestamps and file sizes.
Also, please share fdisk -l information for that Linux drive as well as df output.

[handy]

@mbod Thanks for your reply.

I think I’ll give EndeavourOS a miss. One of my first pacman updates caused GRUB to fail, making me to the arch-chroot routine.

Then an update or two later & I’m frozen out of my boot via a kernel panic. Which has cost me a lot of time in research & I don’t want to invest anymore time in it. I’ve had more trouble in a few days with EOS than I had in 4.5 + years of MX.

So I think I’ll go back to MX & just put up with having to do a reinstall every 4 years or so due to its semi-rolling release nature.

Take care.