I seem unable to make the grub booting wait and spend more time looking for the target partition. What am I doing wrong?
Some solutions involve use of rootdelay being set or increased from Grub's menuentry. For instance Q. or this with a mention of a typical error and the procedure:
... list of parameters. Add this one to it: rootdelay=130
Hit Enter and then b (boot)
I am trying to use this method, [I used [F10] not [b]] , but although I get a code prompt I am not actually seeing any obvious rootdelay i.e. a delay in the time before the prompt appears whilst increasing the time available to look for the target. I have been trying with a value of 30 which I expect to result in a very noticeable 30 seconds delay.
I also have an issue with trying to get a read write system mounted and working, but will post that as a separate question.
Maybe I am making some novice error with syntax or something, although I have previously had similar methods working without problems. I have separated the rootdelay=30 with leading and trailing spaces, used all lowercase, and entered my chosen value immediately after the equals character.
The back story to this is that I have a Ubuntu install on a multiboot amd64 bit laptop that will get a login screen, but I appear to have forgotten the password and am trying to use passwd in rwmounted mode to reset it. [Other Operating Systems correctly boot, login and run as expected.] I tend to get error messages about delays similar to
— Check rootdelay= (did the system wait long enough?)
— Check root= (did the system wait for the right device?)
Not sure how I get the actual messages to post here as the system is not at that point in RW mode so I can only copy by eye, rather than pasting or echoing.
Right now I do not seem to need the rootdelay, but I do want to figure it out for when I do need it. As for the lack of a password reset, at least I can access the home partition of the Ubuntu I can't login to and any important data should have been backed up anyhow. So at present this issue is a minor irritation rather than a data loss issue.
==> EDIT
I have now discovered one method to get in to RW mode by remounting from the Command Line obtained as above.
From the new prompt I enter: mount -o remount rw /
That results in EXT4-fs (sda6): re-mounted. Opts: (null)
That still will not give me the desired passwd command
When I exit it results in a kernel panic.
BUT it does enable me to make a persistent write to the hdd which I can see later. i.e I may create new files in the root that are visible
end edit <==
Related external documentation is
Community Wiki Fixing reboot/shutdown freezes Which indicates an alternative more permanent method of passing parameters, instead of directly editing Grubs menuentry. But unfortunately does not specifically mention the rootdelay parameter.
kernel.org although I quickly get out of my depth looking at that site https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.html includes
rootdelay= [KNL] Delay (in seconds) to pause before attempting to mount the root filesystem
I would be glad of any tip or pointers as what to do or try next.
