Deleted current kernel using dpkg - Now get Kernel Panic

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WonkyDonkey

New Member
Mar 13, 2026
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A lesson if ever one was needed NOT to do things when tired late at night.

So I've stupidly got my numbers mixed up when trying to tidy up after updating Proxmox and accidentally deleted the current kernel using dpkg and unsurprisingly I now get a kernel panic on boot (VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)).

The system has 1 VM for Home Assistant and an LXC for Frigate, and two SSDs, one for Proxmox and the other for Frigate recordings.

I have relatively recent backups on an attached USB drive but would much rather recover the existing system rather than do a complete re-install,. When I try to boot from a USB drive with Proxmox on it and select Advanced => Rescue I also get a kernel panic.

I'm sure there must be a way to re-install the current kernel and/or bootloader, but not having any luck so far.

Any advice would be most welcome.
 
Many thanks for the prompt response. However. I'm failing at the first hurdle as I get a "Read-Only Filesystem" error when I try and create /mnt/RESCUE
 
sounds like you might be in the wrong shell if you are using the debug mode of the installer (the first time you are dropped in the initrd stage, the second time is a more complete environment).. you can pick any writable folder as the target though, just adapt the rest of the commands
 
I'm selecting Advanced Options => Install Proxmox VE (Terminal UI, DebugMode).

Yes, I can create /tmp/RESCUE and carry on from there, except there is no /dev/pve to mount, so I'm not sure exactly what shell I'm running in and which one I should be running in!

Also, there seems to be no vgscan command in this shell!

Any advantage in trying to boot from a Debian USD?
 
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yes, exit that first shell, then you end up in a second shell with more features and binaries!
 
So I've done the mounts and chroot, then tried to do:
apt reinstall proxmox-kernel-6.17.13-1-pve
which gets so far then complains it can't access download.proxmox.com

I'm connected via ethernet cable to the same switch this PC is on, so I'm pretty sure it's not a connection issue.

I can't even ping -4 bbc.co.uk, so I don't think the network stack is loaded or I'm missing something somewehere.

Gotta go out now, so I'll have to come back to it tomorrow.

Thanks for all your help so far.
 
you can run `dhclient` or manually configure an address (before or after chrooting)
 
Happy to report that earlier today I managed to fully recover my Proxmox system following the instructions and help above.

Very happy bunny now, so thanks again for the helping hand.
 
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