Greetings, all --

Courtesy of an SL7 kernel and firmware update yesterday (yum details
below), I get an eternal black screen upon booting not only the new kernel:

   kernel-3.10.0-693.17.1.el7.x86_64

but also the previous one:

   kernel-3.10.0-693.2.2.el7.x86_64

and the one before that, as well as the rescue kernels in my grub menu  So
I have lost all useful access to my computer. I can, however, access the
disk and all my files by mounting them from a 7.3 live install disk. My
computer is an HP Pavilion desktop.

The command I executed was simply:

  # yum update

Updates other than the kernel occur automatically, and, as you can see
from the above, it was a fair while since I had last updated the kernel.
My system was initially installed as 7.3. I've never been quite clear,
based on seemingly contradictory indications, whether it is now "on the
way" to 7.4, or is already a fully qualified 7.4 system. It's whatever the
automatic updates (and my occasional kernel updates) have given me.

I am not competent to do much with the messages from /var/log/messages,
but as far as I can tell they look more or less normal. I don't see any
sign of some glaring fatal error. If someone would like me to extract a
relevant subset of them, I should be able to do so.

I gather that the yum updates can't be rolled back.  Any advice on how to
proceed from here? (This is secondary, but it would be temporaily helpful
if I could chroot to the root of my filesystem from the live install DVD,
and do some work. The live install disk doesn't seem to give an option of
going into rescue mode.)

The yum log shows:

Feb 21 18:12:14 Updated: kernel-tools-libs-3.10.0-693.17.1.el7.x86_64
Feb 21 18:12:19 Updated: linux-firmware-20170606-58.gitc990aae.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:20 Updated: kmod-20-15.el7_4.7.x86_64
Feb 21 18:12:28 Installed: kernel-3.10.0-693.17.1.el7.x86_64
Feb 21 18:12:29 Updated: kernel-tools-3.10.0-693.17.1.el7.x86_64
Feb 21 18:12:29 Updated: iwl135-firmware-18.168.6.1-58.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:30 Updated: iwl6000g2a-firmware-17.168.5.3-58.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:30 Updated: iwl3945-firmware-15.32.2.9-58.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:30 Updated: iwl2030-firmware-18.168.6.1-58.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:31 Updated: iwl5000-firmware-8.83.5.1_1-58.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:31 Updated: iwl2000-firmware-18.168.6.1-58.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:33 Updated: kernel-headers-3.10.0-693.17.1.el7.x86_64
Feb 21 18:12:43 Installed: kernel-devel-3.10.0-693.17.1.el7.x86_64
Feb 21 18:12:44 Updated: iwl7265-firmware-22.0.7.0-58.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:45 Updated: iwl7260-firmware-22.0.7.0-58.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:45 Updated: iwl6050-firmware-41.28.5.1-58.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:45 Updated: 1:iwl1000-firmware-39.31.5.1-58.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:46 Updated: iwl6000-firmware-9.221.4.1-58.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:46 Updated: iwl4965-firmware-228.61.2.24-58.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:46 Updated: iwl6000g2b-firmware-17.168.5.2-58.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:47 Updated: iwl100-firmware-39.31.5.1-58.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:47 Updated: iwl105-firmware-18.168.6.1-58.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:47 Updated: kmod-libs-20-15.el7_4.7.x86_64
Feb 21 18:12:48 Updated: iwl5150-firmware-8.24.2.2-58.el7_4.noarch
Feb 21 18:12:48 Updated: iwl3160-firmware-22.0.7.0-58.el7_4.noarch

Many thanks.

Steve Talbott
The Nature Institute:  http://natureinstitute.org
20 May Hill Road
Ghent, New York 12075
Tel: 518-672-5049