I currently run debian etch and I built a new kernel, everything went just fine, dpkg -i installed with no errors, the initram file was created and grub updated. I configured this kernel with my old config 2.18 settings, but when i try to boot my new kernel everything goes fine until it loads the mouse driver and it just stops, It doesn't give an error or anything. I wonder how to troubleshoot this, where can i see the error, or how can i collect some information about the reason? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

If it's a USB mouse, some have had luck switching ports and booting it up successfully.

no man, that did not work, thanks.

ok, after waiting for 5 minutes I received this message

Check root = bootarg cat /proc/cmline
or missing modules, devices: cat /proc/modules ls dev
Alert! /dev/sda1 does not exist. Dropping to a shell!

and after that, I got a busybox command line, anyone knows what could be the cause?

Try changing the devices listed in /boot/grub/menu.lst from /dev/hdX to /dev/sdX. IDE hard drives are now referred to as /dev/sdX in new kernel releases.

grub already refers to my partitions as /dev/sda. Any other ideas?

Have you tried configuring the kernel from scratch, without using the old configuration? Also make sure that the entries for your root partition are correct in grub. Another option is to tinker with the settings because on some discussions, some people have mentioned that their devices changed from sda to hda when using the 2.6.22 kernel.

Well, editing the grub config wouldn't solve this problem since it happens after the kernel and initramfs are loaded. Check the file "/etc/fstab." It's looking for /etc/sda1 which doesn't exist. Try changing it to /etc/hda1 (and all other /etc/sdaX to /etc/hdaX).

Note: if you don't have a seperate, working partition of Linux to boot from, you'll need to boot from a cd. Then, you'll obviously mount it and change the etc/fstab file in there, not /etc/fstab.

That being said, I'm much more suspicious that it's because you're using your old configuration in a newer kernel. Kernel options change with the kernel, and some options have been replaced with others, some are renamed, and some are removed or reworked to things in a different way. I suggest running a "make mrproper" followed by a "make menuconfig," then configure the hell out of that kernel.


-TDS-

Thanks for all the inputs, the problem was that the new kernel 2.6.22 comes with different SATA drivers, the old SATA drivers are being deprecated. So I had to actually mark the new drivers in the new config, if you just load the old config from the 2.6.18 it won't work, you need to manually add the new SATA drivers from the config menu. That solved the problem.

hi
I am a newbie here, can you explain how to manually add the new SATA drivers??

Is it in .config or menu.lst or fstab??

I am confusing about this

follow this guide to create your new kernel and when you make menuconfig, change the sata devices to the libata driver

http://www.falkotimme.com/howtos/deb...el2.6_compile/

Thanks, I upgrade kernel to 2.6.18 successfully by that guidance.