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When I attempt to boot my Pi into a terminal I get this error, please tell me I can fix this somehow.

[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(179,6) ]

I tried doing this; Kernel panic-not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown- block(179,6) running Raspbian on top of NOOBS but it didn't work with. Once at the recovery command line I typed sudo fsck.ext4 -y /dev/mmcblk06p and was told -sh; sudo; not found. Thoughts/help anyone please.

Keith D Kaiser
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1 Answers1

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Most of the experienced users on this site don't use NOOBS - even on the Foundation Forum experienced users tell new users not to use it - I don't know why the Foundation keeps recommending it.

Unless you have something worth recovering I suggest you use Etcher to install Raspbian to a SD Card (like the vast bulk of us).

If you get to a recovery console it MAY work if you use sudo fsck.ext4 -y /dev/mmcblk0p6 (as in the tutorial).

NOTE that tutorial is obsolete, I doubt NOOBS has a root password, and if logged as root you don't need sudo.

PS Most of us don't attempt recovery - we just restore from a backup if the image becomes corrupt.

PPS If you do a fresh Raspbian install, use a new SD Card, and you may be able to mount the old SD Card and recover files.

The following is the normal recovery process (assuming you can find cmdline.txt - which WON'T be on the 1st partition - probably p5)

  1. Append init=/bin/sh at the end of cmdline.txt and reboot.
  2. After booting you will be at the prompt in a root shell.
  3. Your root file system is mounted as readonly now, so remount it as read/write mount -n -o remount,rw /

Just to be clear the above will NOT allow FS repair (this needs a different working root partition) but allows access to files and sometimes lets problems be corrected manually.

Milliways
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  • There are files on the SD card I need to recover. When I say NOOBS that was the start it has Raspien Stretch (I think). But as I said above I can't even try the sudo fsck..... because it errors out saying sudo was not found. – Keith D Kaiser Jan 03 '20 at 03:54
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    @KeithDKaiser I can't tell you how to recover NOOBS, although there are plenty of Answers showing how to attempt recovery of Raspbian. It is likely the SD Card is worn out, and repeated attempts may cause more damage. You can attempt recovery on a Linux machine (which can be a fresh Raspbian installation on a new Card). – Milliways Jan 03 '20 at 04:26