Re: totally random "VFS: Cannot open root device"

["Jean-François Stenuit" <jfs@keytradebank.com>]

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Note that I experienced the same problem yesterday evening with a 
2.6.15-rc3 on HP Proliant DL140, which has an ICH-5 based controller and 
a Maxtor drive

Successfull boot shows :
...
libata version 1.12 loaded.
ata_piix version 1.04
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.2[A] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.2 to 64
ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x1F0 ctl 0x3F6 bmdma 0x1470 irq 14
ata1: dev 0 cfg 49:2f00 82:7869 83:7d09 84:4633 85:7869 86:3c01 87:4623 
88:203f
ata1: dev 0 ATA, max UDMA/100, 156301488 sectors: lba48
ata1: dev 0 configured for UDMA/100
scsi0 : ata_piix
  Vendor: ATA       Model: Maxtor 6L080M0    Rev: BANC
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 05
ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0x1478 irq 15
ata2: SATA port has no device.
scsi1 : ata_piix
st: Version 20050830, fixed bufsize 32768, s/g segs 256
SCSI device sda: 156301488 512-byte hdwr sectors (80026 MB)
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back
SCSI device sda: 156301488 512-byte hdwr sectors (80026 MB)
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back
 sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 < sda5 sda6 sda7 sda8 >
Attached scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi generic sg0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0,  type 0
...

A failed boot shows "ata1: SATA port has no device". I'll try to set-up 
a serial console to log the boot messages.

This behaviour can be reproduced on four different DL140's, so it's 
fairly safe to say it's not a cabling/hardware problem.

Tejun Heo wrote:

> 0602@eq.cz wrote:
>
>> Hi!
>>
>> (Please CC me your answers as I am not subscribed.)
>>
>> I have a problem with 2.6.14.3 kernel (but this probably isn't too 
>> version-specific). I have a kernel which succesfully boots on totally 
>> random basis (cca 70% is success). My root partition resides on a 
>> SATA disc connected to a controller on Intel 6300ESB ICH southbridge 
>> (mb Intel se7320vp2). There is a reiserfs 3 filesystem on my root 
>> partition. Without any changes to configuration (os or bios or 
>> whatever) I sometimes get:
>>
>> VFS: Cannot open root device "801" or unknown block(8,1)
>>
>> Could this be some timeout issue, or indication of crappy hw? I've 
>> tried this about 10 times (immediately ctrl+alt+del on successfull 
>> boot or reset button on aforementioned panic) and I saw no 
>> regularities in this misbehaviour.
>>
>> I sincerely appreciate any advice anyone can give.
>>
>
> [CC'ing linux-ide]
>
> Hello, 0602.  :-)
>
> Can you please post dmesg of a successful booting?  That will tell us 
> which SATA controller/disks you are using.  Also, the boot log of a 
> failed boot will be very helpful - the best way to get this is via 
> serial console.  If you don't have access to serial console, taking 
> note   / picture of the part where SATA detection fails will do too.
>
> Also, when the machine boots successfully, does it work without 
> generating disk related kernel logs?  Just perform any IO-heavy 
> operations - cp'ing directories which contain large files, 
> tar/untarring... - and see if the kernel complains about anyting.
>


-- 
Jean-François "Jef" Stenuit
Network & Security manager
Keytrade Bank SA


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