How do I restore the /boot directory after accidentally deleting its contents or corruption?

Solution Verified - Updated

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

Issue

  • How do I restore the /boot directory after accidentally deleting its contents?
  • How do I restore the /boot after corruption and missing files?

Resolution

Important Notice


***The following information has been provided by Red Hat, but is outside the scope of the posted [Production Support Scope of Coverage](https://access.redhat.com/support/offerings/production/soc).***
***The supported method to restore the /boot partition is to use the Anaconda installer in the regular Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation process to reinstall the OS.***
***Please follow article [My /boot partition has been deleted, how do I recreate this partition?](https://access.redhat.com/solutions/67543) for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 release Legacy BIOS system.***

  • Enable the network to have the yum working Enabling networking in rescue environment without chrooting

  • Mount the to /boot from your disk.

    #mount /dev/<disk_partition> /boot
Ex:
#mount /dev/sda1 /boot

  • Make the directory structure available.

    #mkdir /boot/grub2

  • Copy the modules as or copy the entire things from an identical system as fonts locale directive.

    #cp -r /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc /boot/grub2/i386-pc

  • Reinstall the kernel packages as,

    # yum remove kernel-<release>
# yum install kernel-<release>

Note : It is expected to have grubby fatal error: unable to find a suitable template which can be ignored at this stage as the /boot do not have the /boot/grub2/grub.cfg available yet.

  • Install the grub2 packages as

    #yum reinstall $(rpm -qa | grep grub)

  • Regenerate the grub configuration as,

    #grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

  • Check if /etc/grub2.cfg has a symbolic link to /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

  • Finally, reinstall the grub on new created partition as,

    #grub2-install <disk>
Ex:
#grub2-install /dev/sda

  • If you have UEFI system then follow steps as How to reinstall GRUB and GRUB2 on UEFI-based machines?

  • This all should help to have the /boot contents created and boot the system, but if you have backup of /boot then we strongly recommend to restore it from backup.

Root Cause

  • Accidental delete of /boot contents.
  • Corruption to /boot filesystem leading to cleanup of /boot contents.
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