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Missing init in zorin OS 4

saqman2060
saqman2060 Posts: 777
in System Management

I have a system with zorin OS 4 32bit installed on one of my 64bit system. Upon booting, I got an error message saying "init not found, try passing init= bootarg".

Not sure how that happen, but it appears the init file has been corrupted or removed. When you get an error like this, what are the methods of replacing an init file?

Comments

  • marc
    marc Posts: 647
    saqman2060 wrote:
    I have a system with zorin OS 4 32bit installed on one of my 64bit system. Upon booting, I got an error message saying "init not found, try passing init= bootarg".

    Not sure how that happen, but it appears the init file has been corrupted or removed. When you get an error like this, what are the methods of replacing an init file?

    Boot into a livecd, chroot to the proper partition and install a kernel (either own compilation or from the distro's repos)

    Regards
  • atreyu
    atreyu Posts: 216
    saqman2060 wrote:
    I have a system with zorin OS 4 32bit installed on one of my 64bit system. Upon booting, I got an error message saying "init not found, try passing init= bootarg".

    Not sure how that happen, but it appears the init file has been corrupted or removed. When you get an error like this, what are the methods of replacing an init file?
    It is not so much that the init file has been corrupted, rather, the file, /sbin/init, literally cannot be found. Usually this is because the root file system cannot be mounted, for some wiggy reason. Often a bogus initrd (initial ramdisk) is the culprit. Or, if you've got a custom kernel you are trying to boot, and that kernel does not have the proper disk or filesystem drivers enabled, you could see this error. There are plenty of other ways this can happen, too. I would proceed w/Marc's suggestion, though. That's a good start.
  • saqman2060
    saqman2060 Posts: 777
    Thanks for the advice. I will give that a try.
  • mfillpot
    mfillpot Posts: 2,177
    You can always boot into the system through the chroot environment and attempt to build a new initrd file with mkinitrd, but re-installing the kernel is the safest way to reinstate the file.
  • saqman2060
    saqman2060 Posts: 777
    Well I'll try your method first matt then, if that fails, I'll reinstall the kernel...ug
  • saqman2060
    saqman2060 Posts: 777
    Ok I fixed the problem but I didn't have to install the kernel. What I did was run the liveCD, added the system partition to fstab, then in the command line, ran # sudo fsck /dev/sda1. The program cleaned some system blocks, and I was able to mount the partition in the the /media folder. I checked the folder and all the partitions system folders were available.

    The crazy thing is, this was my first attempt at recovering a linux system...weird

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