[PROBLEM] Upgrade to Beta troubles on usb install

[Jan]

Until tonight, I had a running usb install (following the guides, so there should be nothing special there). Basically I had mounted my usb drives partions to the right places using /etc/fstab.

Then I tried the upgrade like described on http://www.xbian.org/2013/07/xbian-1-0-beta-1-1-hotfix-for-xbian-1-0-beta-1/ Upgrading from XBian 1.0 Alpha 5

Everything downloaded without errors, the update installed, I got the new splash screen. But now, when I restart, I get welcomed by busybox telling me:

Terminal

Loading initram modules ...
Root partition LABEL=xbian-root-btrfs missing
mount: mounting LABEL=xbian-root-btrfs on /rootfs failed: No such file or directory

Now, I cannot even find /etc/fstab to check that. Whoami gives me an error (unknown uid 0), so I might not even be root.

How should I continue?

[Jan]

So it seems, that xbian expects the rootfs to be btrfs and have a label xbian-root-btrfs. Would converting my current ext3 rootfs to btrfs (from what I read this can be converted) and labeling it correctly solve my problems?

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Ah, and it seems /dev/mmcblk0p2 resolves to a partition on the sd card, I no longer use. Instead I use a partition on the usb drive, something like /dev/sda1.
I wonder where I could find the piece of script that emulates fstab...

[f1vefour]

Please see this post:

http://forum.xbian.org/showthread.php?pid=13613#pid13613

[Jan]

Problem is, I have only busybox and no internet. Not even my usb disk is being mounted. I think the update foobared my little setup here

[Jan]

Well, great! Without warning me in any way, the install procedure (http://www.xbian.org/2013/07/xbian-1-0-beta-1-1-hotfix-for-xbian-1-0-beta-1) repartitioned and reformatted my media drive and my entire video collection is lost. Not even testdisk seems to be able to recover anything.

Welcome to the linux experience!

[f1vefour]

(18th Aug, 2013 10:42 PM)Jan Wrote:  Well, great! Without warning me in any way, the install procedure (http://www.xbian.org/2013/07/xbian-1-0-beta-1-1-hotfix-for-xbian-1-0-beta-1) repartitioned and reformatted my media drive and my entire video collection is lost. Not even testdisk seems to be able to recover anything.

Welcome to the linux experience!

I'm so sorry you made a mistake and lost your media (no sarcasm intended ), I pointed you to a post that gave you the instructions on what to change in order to run root from USB.

Your media was on a flash drive or were you trying to run root from an HD?

[Jan]

54, no the data was lost, long before you replied (thanks for that, btw!) - but in a more general manner, I doubt following the upgrade procedure from the developer's blog with such a disastrous outcome can count as a mistake _I_ made. Running xbian from a usb disk is not such an edge case, that it would seem too much work to at least issue a warning for those users.
This is very, very frustrating - how could somebody think, silently repartitioning, reformatting and writing to a disk, would be an operation so safe, that a warning about the upcoming procedure would be unnecessary.

I mean, I do not want to be unthankful, because the makers of xbian certainly invest a lot of time and energy into their project. But once you get a certain user base one must also conceive, that a certain kind of user friendliness (not erasing and rewriting disks without warning, for example) is expected. After all xbian in not seen as a hack and treated with less levels of suspicion by its users.

An upgrade procedure of a consumer product should be regarded as safe. It should tests for untreated cases, and exit if one is found.

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Quote:Your media was on a flash drive or were you trying to run root from an HD?

/boot was on a sd card, all other partitions were on an attached usb hard drive.

[f1vefour]

Jan

What instructions did you follow, the link you posted above are beta install instructions for SD not USB.

I need to know exactly what happened so it doesn't happen again.

[Jan]

54, the blog does not mention, that this is for SD install only. The word SD is not even mentioned on the page.
As for what happened - I did just what I was asked to do in this article, nothing else.

[f1vefour]

(19th Aug, 2013 04:39 AM)Jan Wrote:  54, the blog does not mention, that this is for SD install only. The word SD is not even mentioned on the page.
As for what happened - I did just what I was asked to do in this article, nothing else.

You were on alpha5 (root on USB) and were upgrading to beta1.1 correct?

Your media may still there, your filesystem was converted to btrfs during the upgrade.

[Jan]

Yes, fortunately, I was finally able to recover my old partition table (using testdisk). What seems to have happened, was that I had two simultaneous partition schemes, my original one and the one created during the upgrade. Probably, just guessing, they were using different locations (like one in the mbr, the other elsewhere). They were mismatching in size and the new one got the size of the hd wrong.