HTPC: LE doesn't boot when new SATA-HDD is connected

1st Official Post

    Hi,

    I recently changed my HTPC from Windows to LE 8.0.2. It's installed on an SDD, connected to SATA-0. Everything works fine.

    But when I try to connect the internal SATA-HDD which I used for data storage under Windows , LE can't boot:

    Code
    Error in mount_flash: mount_common: Could not mount LABEL=system

    Checking with "df" in the the debugging shell shows:

    Code
    devtmpfs 1953480  0 1953480 0%  /dev

    The size indicated this is the HDD. There's no other device listed.

    In the BIOS, only the SSD is enabled as boot device. I also tried using other SATA-ports, same result. The HDD is ntfs-formatted, if this matters.


    What can I do?

    Thank you!

    • Official Post

    LibreELEC 8.0.2 is a thing of the past. Upgrade to v8.2.3 if you can.

    Did you also properly install LibreELEC on the SSD, and let it resize its storage partition on the first boot?

    When LibreELEC runs, start up a SSH session, and give us the output of:

    Code
    blkid | paste
mount | paste
dmesg | paste

    Is your HDD still empty?

    - If so, format it with a single EXT4 primary partition, and give it a proper label name.

    - If not, put it back in a Windows PC and do a full error check/fix on it. Afterwards, shut down Windows fully and properly. Then put the HDD back into the LibreELEC machine, and boot again.

    Hi Klojum,

    since I have no Windows PC readily available, I put the HDD into my Linux PC. The error message when trying to mount it confirms your guess: NTFS system in an unstable state due to some windows metadata.

    I totally forgot that I installed a Win-7 system partition on this disk a few years ago, before adding a system SSD to the HTPC.

    Currently a backup to my PC's HDD is running, with the disk mounted as read-only. I'll format it with ext4 afterwards.

    Thank you!