Re: 2.6.28.7 boot problems

[Robert Hancock <hancockrwd@gmail.com>]

Andrew Schepler wrote:
> Hi, and apologies if this list is an impolite place to ask for help.
> (If not, where is better?)
> 
> I tried building myself a 2.6.28.7 Linux kernel, but the IDE drivers
> seem not to be working.  My hard drive is IDE ATA.  CONFIG_IDE is
> built into the kernel.  I've tried both with and without
> CONFIG_IDE_GENERIC, but there's not much difference.  The root
> partition is ext2 and ext2 is built into the kernel (but it looks like
> the kernel's not even seeing any drives or partitions.)
> 
> On failed 2.6.28.7 boot, I see the following relevant-looking lines.
> I copied these by hand, so there might be a minor typo.  Yes, the
> kernel lists no partitions after "available partitions:".
> ide-gd driver 1.18
> ide-cd driver 5.00
> ide_generic: please use "probe_mask=0x3f" module parameter
> ...
> VFS: Cannot open root device "hda3" or unknown-block(0,0)
> Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
> Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)
> 
> Below is a grep excerpt from my .config, and then a successful dmesg
> from kernel 2.6.17.  Can anyone guess what's going wrong?
> 
> Many thanks,
> -- Andrew
> 
> $ grep -Ei 'ide|ata' /usr/src/linux-2.6.28.7/.config
> # CONFIG_ATALK is not set
> # CONFIG_PARIDE is not set
> # CONFIG_ATA_OVER_ETH is not set
> CONFIG_HAVE_IDE=y
> CONFIG_IDE=y
> # Please see Documentation/ide/ide.txt for help/info on IDE drives
> CONFIG_IDE_ATAPI=y
> # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE_SATA is not set
> CONFIG_IDE_GD=y
> CONFIG_IDE_GD_ATA=y
> CONFIG_IDE_GD_ATAPI=y
> CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDECD=y
> CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDECD_VERBOSE_ERRORS=y
> # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDETAPE is not set
> # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDESCSI is not set
> # CONFIG_IDE_TASK_IOCTL is not set
> CONFIG_IDE_PROC_FS=y
> # IDE chipset support/bugfixes
> CONFIG_IDE_GENERIC=y
> CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA_SFF=y
> # PCI IDE chipsets support
> CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEPCI=y
> # CONFIG_IDEPCI_PCIBUS_ORDER is not set
> CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA_PCI=y
> CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA=y
> CONFIG_ATA=y
> # CONFIG_ATA_NONSTANDARD is not set
> CONFIG_SATA_PMP=y
> # CONFIG_SATA_AHCI is not set
> # CONFIG_SATA_SIL24 is not set
> CONFIG_ATA_SFF=y
> ...
> (the rest of the matching lines are not set)

Sounds like you don't have the chipset-specific IDE driver enabled for 
your hardware (I don't see any of them enabled in this list). I think 
that IDE_GENERIC used to drive the controller in this case, but not 
anymore, as it can only do so in a crappy, non-DMA way.