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Michał Szydłowski
Asked: 2020-02-07 02:52:11 +0800 CST

Why am I unable to boot Ubuntu after motherboard change?

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I have a Dell XPS 15 laptop and I had my motherboard replaced. After that I am no longer able to dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu. Of course I disabled Secure boot in BIOS. The problem is:

  • if I set SATA mode to RAID on, the GRUB bootloader loads correctly, but if I select Ubuntu (no matter which kernel or if it's recovery mode or not), I get the error:
Gave up waiting for root device. Common problems:
 - Boot args (cat /proc/cmdline)
 - Check rootdelay= (did the system wait long enough?)
 - Missing modules (cat /proc/modules; ls /dev)
ALERT! /dev/disk/by-uuid/920903aa-762f-40d2-8126-87f4b0e6f975 does not exist. Dropping to a shell!
  • if I try AHCI mode, I'm not even able to access GRUB boot menu, as I get Dell system check screen right away and after that it starts recovery process.

I'd really appreciate any help on this.

boot dual-boot raid uefi ahci

1 Answers

  1. When this happens, it is usually a problem in initramfs. You can fix it like this:

    1. Boot from a LiveUSB/DVD

    2. Open a Terminal

    3. Perform the following commands:

      $ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
$ sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
$ sudo mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
$ sudo mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys
$ sudo chroot /mnt
$ update-initramfs -u
$ update-grub
$ reboot

    Be sure to replace /dev/sda1 with the actual device name of the system partition, otherwise "bad things will happen". The issue comes down to what initramfs is expecting to find when it boots. Replacing a motherboard, even if it's with another of the exact same model, is nothing to sneeze at. This would be like replacing a person's lungs with a set from a donor. Sure, they work the same ... but they're not the same. Updating initramfs is a good way to ensure this issue does not prevent a machine from booting after parts are replaced/upgraded.

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