Re: 2.4.18-rc4 does not boot

William Stearns
2002-02-23T05:15:40Z

Good day, Michal,
(My apologies in advance if your problem is not a mischosen root
partition).

On Fri, 22 Feb 2002, Michal Jaegermann wrote:

> On Monday, Feb 18, I posted a message that 2.4.18-pre9-ac4
> fails to boot on my machine with
>
> FAT: bogus logical sector size 0
> FAT: bogus logical sector size 0

See http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0111.3/0454.html
; the post refers to the fact that the kernel doesn't know what filesystem
is being used on the root device, so it tries all of the filesystem
drivers. The fat filesystem is whining because it can't recognize a fat
filesystem on /dev/hda...

> Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:00

The 03:00 seems to imply to me that the kernel is looking for a
root filesystem on /dev/hda (see /usr/src/linux/Documentation/devices.txt
). Is your root filesystem truly on /dev/hda (the entire drive), or (more
likely) on one of the partitions, such as /dev/hda1, /dev/hda2, etc.?
If your root filesystem is on one of these others, you can tell
the kernel what partition to use with:

rdev /path/to/my/kernel/file /dev/hda9 #Replace hda9 with your root partition

or autodetect the partition with:

rdev /path/to/my/kernel/file `cat /etc/mtab | grep ' / ' | cut -f 1 -d ' '`

If you're booting this kernel from a floppy, make sure
you tell that kernel to use the right root as well; redo either of the
above with

rdev /dev/fd0 /dev/hda9 #Replace hda9 with your root partition
rdev /dev/fd0 `cat /etc/mtab | grep ' / ' | cut -f 1 -d ' '`

You might also want to check your boot loader's configuration file
and make sure that it references the correct root filesystem.

/etc/lilo.conf:

image=/boot/bzImage-2.4.18-3
label=2.4.18-3
root=/dev/hda4
read-only

Cheers,
- Bill

> messages. 2.4.18-rc1, and many different kernels, do not have
> troubles of that sort. Tonight I found to my dismay that the
> same trouble afflicted 2.4.18-rc4. No, I do not know why this
> happens; at least at this moment.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"cc:Mail is a wonderful application, as long as you don't want
to read or send mail."
(Courtesy of Nix <nix@esperi.demon.co.uk>)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
William Stearns (wstearns@pobox.com). Mason, Buildkernel, named2hosts,
and ipfwadm2ipchains are at: http://www.pobox.com/~wstearns
LinuxMonth; articles for Linux Enthusiasts! http://www.linuxmonth.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------