Ubuntu – Target file system doesn’t have requested /sbin/init

Suggested fix can be found here: http://pinoy-computing-tips.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-to-fix-ubuntu-error-no-init-found.html

Quoting:

This morning, a friend came to me with his laptop that won't boot. At every boot attempt, his Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx system outputs the following error messages:

mount: mounting /dev/disk/by-uuid/***************************** on /root
failed: Invalid argument
mount: mounting /sys on /root/sys failed: No such file or directory
mount: mounting /dev on /root/dev failed: No such file or directory
mount: mounting /sys on /root/sys failed: No such file or directory
mount: mounting /proc on /root/proc failed: No such file or directory

Target file system doesn't have /sbin/init
No init found. Try passing init= bootarg

Busybox v1.13.3 (Ubuntu 1:1.13.3-1ubuntu7) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands
(initramfs) _

Booting into "Recovery Mode" as well as choosing the other kernels listed in grub didn't help at all.

Solution:

1. Boot from the Ubuntu Live CD;

2. Open/Run Terminal;

3. Type: sudo fdisk -l (to get the device name) then press ENTER;

   Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes 
   255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
   Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
   Disk identifier: **********
   
   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
   /dev/sda1 * 1 30238 242886703+ 83 Linux
   /dev/sda2 30239 30401 1309297+ 5 Extended
   /dev/sda5 30239 30401 1309266 82 Linux swap / Solaris
   

   The device name for my friend's system based on the above: /dev/sda1

4. Type: sudo fsck /dev/sda1 then press ENTER;

5. Restart the system and boot normally.

having the same issue with Trusty (14.04) while trying to solve an unity issue using a solution found on one of the bug's documentation.

Makes me sad to see all this research go to "waste" without even an attempt of an answer. Surely there must be a way to fix this without a fresh install.

I haven't came to a solution yet, but let me share what can be the entry to a solution (part of it thanks to this thread):

1. Create a bootable USB drive with the Ubuntu distro of your preference

2. Select the Try Ubuntu option

3. Make sure your filesystem is usable with e2fsck /dev/your-partition

   • you can get the correct info by running blikd or fdisk -l

4. Mount your partition with sudo mount /dev/your-partition /mnt

   • Get files from disk on Ubuntu livecd?

5. Access your root's env with chroot /mnt

   • How recover from a bad update and no /sbin/init

6. By now you should have full access to your filesystem.
   It's up to you to try to fix or retrieve your data through an USB drive or using rsync

I was stuck trying to rebuild init through sudo apt-get install init

it returned unable to locate package init and as for sudo apt-get update it returned something like

Is there a default init package for ubuntu 14.04?

While trying to download manually, I've found an immense list of init packages here.

The only "init" package i've found is apparently for xenial. Can i use this package to install in trusty?

Still trying to figure out how to make this work. A few more hours until I admit defeat and start backing up my sensitive data before reinstalling from scratch.