Re: [gentoo-user] Kernel panic - not syncing: No working init found.

["J. Roeleveld" <joost@antarean.org>]

On 3 June 2020 20:38:49 CEST, thelma@sys-concept.com wrote:
>On 06/03/2020 12:06 PM, J. Roeleveld wrote:
>> On 3 June 2020 18:24:47 CEST, thelma@sys-concept.com wrote:
>>> When I try to boot I'm getting an error:
>>>
>>> "Kernel panic - not syncing: No working init found. Try passing 
>init=
>>> option to kernel."
>>>
>>> I am running very low on disk space, I think.
>>> I've tried to boot strap the system and remove some files but boot
>>> strap
>>> is not working.  When I boot from minimal-install gentoo CD I try:
>>>
>>> swapon /dev/sda3
>>> swapon: /dev/sda3: read swap header failed: Input/output error
>>>
>>> Any solution?
>> 
>> Is this on a new system? Or on an existing system that started
>showing this issue after working correctly for a while?
>> 
>> --
>> Joost
>> 
>
>The system is old and was working for some time, it has a SSD drive, it
>just recently this error showed up.
>
>--
>Thelma

How old are the SSDs?
Were they used for swap?
How are they connected?

The dmesg you sent in the other email makes me think the SSDs are connected to old ATA ports as they mention UDMA instead of Sata speeds.

I would definitely suspect:
- the drives (incl. SSDs)
- other hardware (incl. the disk controller(s))
- memory
- PSU

As the issue is recent and intermittent, either a recent addition is causing issues, or there is a timing issue occuring during boot. And these can also occur during kernel initialisation. An initramfs with failover to a simple shell could help here as then you can get a dmesg of when the init fails.

There is a kernel commandline option that forces the kernel to wait an X amount of time before trying to access the root-partition and starting "init". This is usually needed for USB-boot, but might also be necessary when disks take a bit longer to initialize.

--
Joost
-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.