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    [    1.207957] kernel: Trying to unpack rootfs image as initramfs...
[    1.356624] kernel: Initramfs unpacking failed: Decoding failed

I just saw this error message when I switched on my computer today. Thankfully it didn't cause a crash and I was able to login without problem. To give you some background, my computer was not booting at all few days ago with lots of error regarding ata bus and before that I used to have Windows 10 which was also not booting. I thought my hard drive was dying but came across to some suggestions to check sata cables and power plugs. So, I opened up my laptop, disconnect and reconnect sata cables and power plugs and it worked. I was able to boot without problems for 3 days but today I got this error message. When I listen to my hard drive closely, I hear it is working a bit then makes a ticking sound periodically. I think it is dying but fsck doesn't report any bad sector. I have no important data on this harddrive but don't want to change it as I can still use my pc.

Andrew Harlan
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1 Answers1

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This is the same issue I solved here

In a nutshell :

Here are the steps :

  • With the selector on your main GRUB entry press e to enter the editor
  • Find the entry that starts with linux
  • Delete quiet splash (or anything you have at the end of the line, but not touching any word that starts with a $) from the line (don't worry the change is only going to last one boot) replacing it with nomodeset (the line should look like this
linux   /boot/vmlinuz-5.9.12-050912-generic root=UUID=<REDACTED> ro nomodeset $vt_handoff
  • Boot using F10 and wait to be spawned to the DE (if you don't no worry, stike Ctrl-Alt-F2 to enter the tty)
  • Once logged and within an open terminal run :
sudo -i
nano /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf

Change the COMPRESS line from COMPRESS=lz4 to COMPRESS=gzip

Save the changes with Ctrl + x | y | Return

then run update-initramfs -u

Reboot and done

Nicolas Formichella
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  • Thanks a lot. Sounds complicated but I'll try it on next boot. – Andrew Harlan Apr 02 '21 at 10:18
  • Mind you, if you have GDM3, TTY is Ctrl-Alt-F3, not F2. – Levente Apr 02 '21 at 12:07
  • I also had to change this compress value to gzip, but I could do it from within the running OS (not even chrooted), just from the regular, booted OS, in the graphical session. In other words, for me, this initramfs compress issue did not cause a boot failure. – Levente Apr 02 '21 at 12:09
  • Update: I didn't have this error today when I switched on the computer even though I didn't change anything. – Andrew Harlan Apr 03 '21 at 07:46
  • @Levente The nomodeset is when you can't boot, if you can boot you can change the settings from the OS – Nicolas Formichella Apr 03 '21 at 10:37
  • @AndrewHarlan that may actually point towards hardware inconsistency indeed... You have written that you have no important data on the disk, nevertheless, consider to back up (copy out) first anything you may want to avoid losing. Then do a "SMART scan": that can provide clues about the healthiness of the disk. I don't know what exactly that SMART scan is and where it's coming from, but I have seen others talk about it in similar situations, on this site. Update, found it: https://askubuntu.com/q/528072/1157519 – Levente Apr 03 '21 at 11:00
  • @Levente, SMART says hard drive is healthy. I had done those tests before, both short and extended. Also fsck can't find any bad sector. Disconnecting and reconnecting sata cable and power plug really worked for me. Otherwise I wasn't able to boot at all. Though I still hear that ticking sound from the hard drive when the pc is idle. Maybe it's the sound of parking magnetic head, don't know. – Andrew Harlan Apr 04 '21 at 07:33