Hi,

Today I felt bolder than yesterday, and thus decided to attempt a "harddrive swap". I bought a new harddisk couple of weeks ago and hooked it up as slave until I'll have time to migrate my linux partitions. That day had come.

However I failed again. Here's what happened.
I first booted using the Redhat CD in rescue mode and copied everything on a new partition (created using partitionmagic) with the command cp -pR.
I then changed the IDE cables as to make the new disk primary master. Then I powered the pc and booted again using the rescue cd. I invoked grub and did the following:
root (hd0,1)
setup (hd0)

I also tweaked the grub.conf file since the partition numbering had changed (the boot used to be (hd0,0)).
Finally I crossed my fingers and rebooted. Naturally it didn't work. Here is the exact error messaging during boot-up.

Mounting root filesystem
VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev ide0(3,6).
mount: error 22 mounting ext 3
pivotroot: pivot_root(/sysroot,/sysroot/initrd) failed:2
umount /initrd/proc failed:2
Freeing unused kernel memory: 128k freed
Kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel

Now I have checked the grub.conf file for further changes but couldn't find any (I appended it to this message)

Do you know how I shoud proceed?

I couldn't understand the line root=LABEL=/
Anaconda says it should be root=/dev/hda6
However it boots correctly in my current system. Is that the part I have to change?

Thanks in advance,
Bibby

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda6 (root is not hda6 anymore, it is hda3)
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/tigutz.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux 9
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hdd=ide-scsi apm=off acpi=off
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

RH uses partiton labels in the fstab instead of /dev/. You didn't create labels on the new drive so it can't find anything.

To create partition labels use label2fs.

Ah ha, did you change the jumper on the back of the drive itself??

What do I need to do now then? This?:
Swap cables again and boot with the RH rescue cd.
mount the partition and chroot to it.
invoke the command label2fs.

How does that work? Do I specify a label along with a drive such as label2fs / /dev/hda3

I am asking all these questions since I won't have the opportunity to connect to the internet during the process, and I have to know precisely what I'll have to do.

No I didn't change them, since the jumpers are in the "cable select" position. Since I play with them often I decided to use this mode to avoid mingling with the jumpers every time.


Thanks to both of you for your answers!

http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man8/tune2fs.8.html
Here is the correct utility
http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man8/e2label.8.html

mounting and chroot will probably not work because your fstab file still references labels and not /dev/hdax.

Either change fstab and grub.conf to /dev/hdax or add labels to your partitions.