An error occurred mounting one of your file systems WSL error

While opening the Windows Subsystem for Linux on Windows 11/10, if you get an error message saying An error occurred mounting one of your file systems, these solutions will troubleshoot the issue. It happens when your system fails to mount the drive. However, you can get rid of this problem with the help of these tips tricks. The entire error message says something like this:

An error occurred mounting one of your file systems. Please run ‘dmesg’ for more details.

For your information, dmesg is used to examine or control the kernel ring buffer. In this article, we are going to see what you need to do in order to resolve this issue.

What is An error occurred mounting one of your file systems?

This error appears when one tries to install WSL or tries to open it. The problem in both cases is that your WSL is unable to mount Windows drivers. There are various reasons why this could happen, for the most part, it is an incompatibility issue or a bug. In that case, users were able to resolve the issue by just updating the Linux Kernal or Windows Subsystem for Linux. You should also check the default distribution and see if it is set correctly. We have mentioned steps to do the same.

Next up, we should also talk about third-party apps that can interfere with your WSL and stop the mounting process. However, they are not easy to identify and there is no way we would recommend you to delete all the software from your computer, hereinafter, we have mentioned a method that will help you in figuring out the cause.

Fix An error occurred mounting one of your file systems on WSL

If an error occurred when mounting one of your file systems on WSL, follow the following suggestions in any order you feel is best suited for you:

Reinstall Windows Hypervisor Platform
Update Windows Subsystem for Linux
Set default distribution
Check the distribution
Disable Windows Hypervisor Platform
Troubleshoot in Clean Boot

To learn more about these steps, continue reading.

1] Reinstall Windows Hypervisor Platform

To use Windows Subsystem for Linux, you must enable a few things on your Windows 11 or Windows 10 computer. For example, it is required to enable Virtual Machine Platform, Windows Hypervisor Platform, etc. If you have disabled those two elements or even one component, you might encounter this issue on your PC. In most cases, people disable the Windows Hypervisor Platform. Therefore, it is recommended to verify the setting before heading toward other options.

To reinstall the Windows Hypervisor Platform, follow these steps:

Search for turn windows features on or off.
Click on the individual search result.
Remove the tick from the Windows Hypervisor Platform checkbox.
Click the OK button.
Restart your computer.
Open the same Windows Features panel.
Tick the Windows Hypervisor Platform checkbox.
Click the OK button.
Restart your computer.

Once done, you will be able to use WSL without any error. However, if it doesn’t help, you can follow the other two solutions mentioned below.

2] Update Windows Subsystem for Linux

Updating the Linux Kernel or WSL often helps fix this issue on Windows 11/10 PC. If you haven’t tried this solution earlier, it is recommended to update the Linux Kernel on your PC. The process is pretty straightforward, and you can do that using the following steps:

Press Win+X to open the WinX menu.
Select Windows Terminal (admin) option.
Click on the Yes button.
Enter this command: wsl –update
Allow the process to complete.

Once done, you can close the Windows Terminal window and start the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

3] Set default distribution

If you have installed docker on your WSL, you might encounter this problem while running it on your PC. In such situations, you need to verify and set the correct distribution as the default one. For that, do the following:

Open Command Prompt with administrator privilege.
Enter this command: wsl –list
Enter this command to set the correct distribution as the default one: wsl -s name-of-distro

After that, close the Command Prompt window and check if you can run WSL or not.

4] Check the distribution

You need to make sure that your distribution is set to default. As otherwise, you will see the error message in question. To do that, again launch Command Prompt as an administrator and run the following command.

wsl –list

If it is not default, run the following command.

wsl -s distroName

Note: Replace “distroName” with the name of the distribution.

Now, run WSL and see if it works.

5] Disable Windows Hypervisor Platform

If that doesn’t work, we need to disable Windows Hypervisor Platform. This has worked for a lot of users experiencing issues with WSL, so, we are assuming that it will work for you as well. Follow the given steps to do the same.

Open Control Panel.
Make sure your View by is set to Large icons.
Click on Programs and Features.
Go to Turn Windows features on or off.
Untick Windows Hypervisor Platform.
Click Ok.

Hopefully, it will do the job for you.

6] Troubleshoot in Clean Boot

Some other apps can interfere with your WSL program and cause the issue for you. Since, we don’t know what this app is, we are going to perform Clean Boot and find out the exact cause of this problem. You will need to identify the offender manually. Then, just uninstall that program and your issue will be resolved.

Also read: Fix Windows Subsystem for Linux Errors, Problems and Issues.

What is Windows Subsystem for Linux?

Windows Subsystem for Linux is a layer that you add to your Windows Operating System to run Linux binary executables. It can be installed on a lot of versions of Windows, such as Windows 10, 11, Server 2019, etc. If you want to add that layer check our guide to install Windows Subsystem Subsyste for Linux.

How to fix An error occurred mounting one of your file systems?

To fix the An error occurred mounting one of your file systems error on WSL; you need to follow the aforementioned solutions. First, you need to reinstall the Windows Hypervisor Platform. As it is one of the most important components to run WSL on Windows 11/10, a slight conflict can cause such issues. Following that, you can update the Linux kernel and set the default distribution.

Fix: Server execution failed error in WSL

How to fix WSL unable to mount drives and thus unable to work in Windows?

If WSL is unable to mount drives on Windows 11/10 PC, you can follow the above-mentioned steps to get rid of this problem. It is most important to check the Windows Hypervisor Platform. If there is some issue, you won’t be able to use WSL in any way. That is why the first solution is mandatory to follow when WSL fails to mount drives.

That’s all! Hope these solutions worked.

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