Wubi Error: Busybox and initramfs
After installing Ubuntu using Wubi, everything worked fine for a few days. After a few days I booted up and was greeted with a terminal-like screen called a BusyBox. After scouring the ubuntu forums and finding several posts explaining how to read the error logs and what-not. All of these “solutions” did not help.
Do I have a solution?
Yes. Boot up into windows and shut down normally. DO NOT HARD RESET! (that’s what’s causing the problem) After windows shuts down, attempt to boot back into ubuntu, it should work this time.
The reason I think it wasn’t working was because when you hard reset your computer you cut all power, therefore disallowing linux to access it’s virtual disk when you start up. If i’m wrong on anything I’ve said, please comment and tell me. Also, if this works for anybody, I’d love to find out. Don’t be afraid to comment!
May 13th, 2008 at 10:05 am
That does fix it for a lot of people, a faulty reset or shutdown will render an ubuntu installed using wubi un-bootable. The solution then is to either do as you said, or run Chkdsk /r on all the hard disks.
Although, I have an ever bigger problem, since both those methods aren’t doing it and I’m still stuck at busybox, so my advice: Don’t install ubuntu using Wubi.
June 10th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
guess what? its not that ur wrong, it goes away with time, i boot normally every time, shut down normally, and i still got it, you have to wait maybe 24-48 hours it is temporary and i am 90% it will not come back. This is an unknown bug.
July 1st, 2008 at 11:38 pm
I’m sorry to hear this approach didn’t work for some of you. I have also had several positive comments about this solution reporting that this solves the problem. I think I agree with you John: this is an unknown bug that will hopefully be fixed in the next edition of the wubi installer. However, as this solution does work some of the time, I recommend you give it a try.
JosephMcLaughlin
December 27th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
[...] Wubi Error: Busybox and initramfs ATTENTION: This post is out of date, for the more recent solution/information go to this post. [...]
December 27th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Great, That’s the reason, thanks for your solution!
December 27th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Hmmm. I performed the pure windows shutdown per above, then ubuntu fired up as usual. I didn’t have to change “default 0″ to “default 2″ in menu.lst (to use the -16 kernel vs -17 kernel as other posts have indicated). Thanks a bunch. This was easier than all the other posts indicate…..
December 27th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Hi, this did indeed explain why I kept having this problem… thanks ever so much!
December 27th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
This is a little late, but I just wanted to say that your post saved my sanity.
Worked perfectly after multiple hours of fiddling.
Thanks!
December 27th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Hi - heeeelp please
I can’t find anything that works on the internet and I’m not used to this system yet.
I’m also getting the busybox message (no error message above it about why the boot failed). I can’t run chkdsk in initrams either, and my computer won’t boot from it’s hard drive (which is why I use the Live CD) and I know the CD works, because I’t been running several times before. I just can’t get out of initrams (tried esc, writing quit and exit, using ctrl+c .. but noting happes except the Busybox text reappearing.
- Any ideas?
December 27th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
chkdsk -r windows, restart and then boot into Ubuntu, that should fix it.