Installation fails: Error in prepare_sysroot

  • Hi all,

    I'm having difficulty installing LE on my HTPC. I'm using the LE USB creator and have tried Generic AMD/Intel/NVIDIA (x86_64) v8.2.5 and v8.90.007 images.

    It's a HTPC I built a few years back built around an AMD A-10 5700 currently running OpenElec installed on an SSD. I'm trying to replace OpenElec with LibreELEC.

    I boot from USB on the HTPC and I wait for the installer to run, I get the LibreELEC splash screen and after a few seconds over the top of the splash screen I get the following error messages:

    After that 'exit' I get pages of stuff dumped to the screen!

    Any ideas what the issue is?

    TIA

  • Yes, I want to do a clean install onto the SSD that currently has OE on it. I'd rather do a clean install than an OE to LE upgrade if possible anyway.

    However, I can't see how I can do a fresh install if the installation process fails before I get any kind options presented to me...?

  • The original error is caused by the kernel boot= param being wrong or (more likely confused) so it fails to mount the partition with the SYSTEM file and dumps you into the initramfs debug shell (which is pretty limited). If you're installing this doesn't make sense because the entire install process runs within the initramfs environment (in the KERNEL file) and you never reach the point in the boot process where SYSTEM would be required.

    So I think the USB bootloader is finding boot params on the SSD (for normal boot) but then you have some kind of disk label clash that results in it failing to find the SYSTEM file and boot fails. If you already made a backup of the existing system and exported that off-box for safe keeping, boot from an Ubuntu LiveUSB and reformat the SSD (any format is okay) then try to reinstall.

  • I erased the partitions on the SSD by booting a Mint XFCE Live USB and GParted.

    LibreELEC still produces the same error though. I tried this booting the USB in both EUFI and BIOS modes, same result for each.

    Any ideas?

  • dmesg isn't recognised/not found!

    "ls /dev/sd*" finds the three drives - the USB stick, the HDD that holds my media and the (now blank) SSD:

    Code
    # ls /dev/sd*
    /dev/sdc2 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdc /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdb /dev/sda

    "blkid" returns the USB stick and the HDD:

    Code
    /dev/sdc1: LABEL="LIBREELEC" UUID="0710-1617" TYPE=vfat
    /dev/sdb1: UUID="8b8eefd4-e5ed-4aa1-a73a-1c5d84070b65" TYPE="ext4"
  • Code
    <3>[   13.496949] squashfs: SQUASHFS error: unable to read id index table
    <6>[   13.497211] F2FS-fs (loop0): Magic Mismatch, valid(0xf2f52010) - read(0xc71e53f1)
    <3>[   13.497214] F2FS-fs (loop0): Can't find valid F2FS filesystem in 1th superblock
    <6>[   13.497254] F2FS-fs (loop0): Magic Mismatch, valid(0xf2f52010) - read(0x41e10784)
    <3>[   13.497256] F2FS-fs (loop0): Can't find valid F2FS filesystem in 2th superblock
    <6>[   13.497265] F2FS-fs (loop0): Magic Mismatch, valid(0xf2f52010) - read(0xc71e53f1)
    <3>[   13.497268] F2FS-fs (loop0): Can't find valid F2FS filesystem in 1th superblock
    <6>[   13.497270] F2FS-fs (loop0): Magic Mismatch, valid(0xf2f52010) - read(0x41e10784)
    <3>[   13.497273] F2FS-fs (loop0): Can't find valid F2FS filesystem in 2th superblock
    <3>[   14.533541] squashfs: SQUASHFS error: unable to read id index table

    The good thing about packaging the entire OS into two files is you only have two files (not thousands). The bad thing is you have one byte of corruption in the image and the entire OS doesn't boot. The lines above indicate something is bad with the SYSTEM file - which matches the error message you're seeing.

    I'd guess it's time for a new USB stick?