Alright I'm at the end of the rope with my Linux knowledge. So I need your help.
I'm on EndeavourOS and just recently upgraded to Linux 7.1.5, all upgrades thus far have been without issue. I am dual-booting but have Linux on its own SSD, and grub handles booting into Linux or Windows.
Now, after booting into Windows and back into Linux, Linux won't start.
The error:
A start job is running for /dev/disks/by-uuid/

Let me tell you what I've already done:

  • Regenerate mkinitrd with dracut
  • Regenerate grub.cfg and verified via diff it is identical to the current one
  • On a live usb verified that the UUIDs in the grub and fstab files are correct using the KDE partition manager (they are)
  • Verify on a live usb the SSD still works (data and everything is still there)
  • Changed the grub boot option on boot to check that the UUID is not hardcoded somewhere and can be changed (this is true, inputting a garbage UUID changes the boot error to A start job is running for /dev/disks/by-uuid/garbage-uuid

One last idea I had was to drop myself into the dracut emergency shell and actually check what's actually under /dev/disks/by-uuid and lo and behold: it's actually missing the drive.

Here's whats nuts tho: grub loads the drive by UUID as well, loads the initrd, and all that works. When I regenerated the initrd with dracut I could also tell that grub was now loading the newer initrd.

WHAT THE FUCK???

Help?

At this point I REALLY don't know wtf to do. Why doesnt the initramfs detect the drive? The only useful info I can add here is that all drives listed under /dev/disks/by-uuid had that shorter UUID with no dashes like ABCD1234, whereas the UUID for the correct drive/partition is the longer type UUID like abc1234-1234-0000-defg

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[–] 2 points 30 minutes ago* (1 child)

Yeah so grub can see the disk but then the kernel can't. Efi and other tricks aren't involved.

I think your route is to find out why the kernel hates your ass. Probably an upd pulled a driver ... But who removes the SATA or nvme stuff?

Either way, it's in the kernel and not the boot or the core apps. I don't use endeavour, where I could provide better help, but I think the kernel is your best suspect for this crime.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 16 minutes ago

    well since endeavour is very close to arch I hope I'll find some solutions in that realm. But yeah I'm thinking something must've gone awry with the kernel.. hm I should downgrade that one too, only downgraded systemd but maybe 7.1.5 has some fuckery

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  • [–] 1 point 12 minutes ago

    Check again whether windows reenabled fast boot. Maybe disable secure boot in bios as well.

    In grub recovery mode, see which drives are there and try to cd into them.

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  • [–] 3 points 47 minutes ago (1 child)

    Just a passing thought, but have you checked if the root partition has any space left?

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  • [–] 2 points 39 minutes ago (1 child)

    Holy shit, are you me?

    https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/boot-stuck-at-a-start-job-is-running-for-dev-disk-by-uuid-uuid-not-familiar/80086

    One minor update I have from this experience, after building a new rig and restoring from a backup of the original system, I tried plugging in my SSD to my new computer and it isn't even recognized in BIOS. I was under the impression my drive failed.

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  • [–] 1 point 38 minutes ago* (1 child)

    This sounds like could be the bit locker function that windows usea. I had this issue with it locking my extra ntfs drive when I installed Linux over my whole primary partition. However, your Windows Drive should not be able to read your Linux drive.

    If Windows bit locker function still caused the trouble, there is a way to fix it but it will continue to happen until you remove Windows.

    If that is the case. Maybe something like ntfsfix command.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 hour ago (1 child)

    Did you also update systemd at the same time? It might be worth reverting that update to see whether it's that causing the issues.

    To me, this sounds more like an fstab/systemd-automount issue rather than a bootloader/initrd issue

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  • [–] 3 points 1 hour ago (1 child)

    Is the Linux disk still visible in your UEFI firmware?

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  • [–] 5 points 1 hour ago (1 child)

    Smarter people than me can answer, but I had two similar issues before. 1) I added nofail to fstab because in my situation it wasn't finding a certain drive and getting stuck, and 2) windows fastboot or hybernate had somehow made drive locked or appear dirty to linux

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 hour ago (1 child)

    Its not the fstab, I mean what am I gonna do, not mount the root drive? idk if its windows fastboot but this setup has been working for a couple months and survived windows and linux updates so this seems unlikely

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  • [–] 2 points 33 minutes ago

    No I realize that, for me it was stuck on a windows partition , which was irrelevant to Linux running. It sounds like it found some corruption and wants to do a full disk check. Or maybe their is a hardware fault arising.

    Others may have better answers for you.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

    can windows see the ssd? did you shut windows down the normal way or the hard way? because there's one way to shut down windows that is basically a hard hibernate, where it keeps control of the drives. i don't remember exactly how it works but it can lock other oses out.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 hour ago (1 child)

    yes windows sees the ssd. no I shut it down the normal way i.e. no hibernation.

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  • [–] [S] 6 points 2 hours ago

    I took a picture of the grub screen maybe that helps idk

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago

    Not sure if my suggestion will be any help, but in the past I found out that macOS installer changes drive flags and removed some flags from my partitions. Fixed with efibootmgr.

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  • [+] 1 point 2 hours ago*