Jessie early boot failure: "/sbin/init exists but couldn't execute it (error -8)" (initrd corrupt?)
My system is running a mix of stable/testing. I managed to upgrade to
systemd, which brought a whole bunch of problems, boot still booted
nevertheless.
But now, somehow, the system is stuck in the very early boot process:
After just 1,5s the system stalls with this error:
...
Failed to execute /init (error -8)
Starting /init: /sbin/init exists but couldn't execute it (error -8)
Starting /init: /bin/sh exists but couldn't execute it (error -8)
Kernel panic - not syncing: No working init found. Try passing init=
option to kernel. See Linux Documentation/init.txt for guidance.
...
Call Trace:
... ? dump_stack
... ? panic...
... ? kernel_init...
... ? ret_from_kernel_thread...
... ? rest_init...
Kernel Offset: 0x0 from 0xc1000000 (relocation range:
0xc0000000-0xf81fdfff)
This is with the stock 3.14-1-686-pae from testing, which worked well
the days before. I have an old 3.2.0 on board, but it fails with an
similar error.
Then, I have a very old 2.6.32 from oldstable, which get further, starts
systemd, seems to switch over to the root fs, but then gets stuck
somehow after 10s.
Now I wonder how I could start the system.
I upgraded initramfs-tools shortly before this problem happended
(although I think the a reboot still worked after that), so I guess it
might be a problem with the new initrd.img-3.14-1-686-pae file.
But how to recover from that?
At the moment I'm lost how to boot the system again.
I already extracted the initramfs from a rescue CD, but the contents
seem reasonable. /sbin/init is there, /bin/sh is there, and all seems
well.
I also tried to add "break=init" to the command line, but it had no
effect at all.
Also, specifying a different init ("init=/sbin/init.sysvinit") had no
effect at all.
Am I right that these options have no effect during the initrd.img
phase?
I would be glad if somebody could give me a few hints where to start
with this problem.
I would appreciate any hints!
Regards,
Gregor
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