[SOLVED] Installed Win 7, now Arch won't boot

Question

Edit: To save anyone reading this all the way, the problem turned out to be a badly edited fstab. Sigh.
PROBLEM:
Grub loads, then loads the kernel, but the boot hangs a few seconds later with no real error messages.
BACKGROUND:
1) I needed to boot a native Windows 7 partition on my 128GB laptop SSD.
2) So, I used gparted in an Ubuntu Live USB to resize my existing Arch partition and create an NTFS partition for Win 7:
sda > sda1=Arch > sda2=ntfs > sda3=linux swap
Arch still booted fine after this (sda1).
3) I then installed windows 7 (BIOS install) onto the second partition (sda2). I don't know where or if it puts some system reserved partition - but I can't see anything in gparted.
4) chrooted from an Arch Live USB, reinstalled GRUB, including mkconfig step
5) *If* I recall, Arch then booted OK.
6)  Booted into Windows and applied all updates, set windows to use UTC clock and updated my laptops BIOS. Reboot.
7) Win 7 boots fine from the grub menu from (hd0,2)
8) Arch starts booting, loads the kernel, then hangs after the kernel has loaded, but before gdm appears. With the following on screen:
[2.104597] INFO @wl_cfg80211_attach : Registered CFG80211 phy
I have tried chrooting and reinstalling linux and linux-headers and grub. But so far to no avail.
[SOLVED with face palm]
I installed syslinux using chroot, as it displays more startup messages. The boot was hanging at [a disk task is starting] or words to that effect. It was my USB stick, which I'd foolishly added to fstab with the "auto" option. Editing that out of fstab - and it's all good.
I'll leave this here in case anyone else does something this dumb.
Last edited by sultanoswing (2013-10-30 08:09:03)

Answer 1

fettouhi wrote:
Thanks for the clarification about the DAEMONS list. My DAEMONS list is:
DAEMONS=(!hwclock ntpd syslog-ng !network netfs crond @alsa dbus networkmanager ufw cupsd avahi-daemon samba)
when I try to enable alsa and dbus I get this
[root@andre ~]# systemctl enable alsa-store.service
The unit files have no [Install] section. They are not meant to be enabled using systemctl.
[root@andre ~]# systemctl enable alsa-restore.service
The unit files have no [Install] section. They are not meant to be enabled using systemctl.
[root@andre ~]# systemctl enable dbus.service
The unit files have no [Install] section. They are not meant to be enabled using systemctl.
Is LVM handled automatically by systemd? The reason I ask is because I have the USELVM= set to YES in rc.conf.
I made the permanent transition to systemd and did not start alsa at all - sound works fine - so I never bothered with the alsa-store/alsa-restore service files at all - it just works! Also dbus gets handled by default in systemd so you don't need any starting of dbus service at all... it just works.