kernel 2.6--unable to mount fs on unknown-block

verbose · 05-06-2006, 11:47 PM

I've been having problems getting kernel 2.6 to boot for the longest time and as a result I've been confined to 2.4. I've recently started trying to get it to boot again because I want to get hardware acceleration working for my graphics card.

At first, I was getting the following errors (just like in the past):

Code:

VFS: Cannot open root device "hde5" or unkown-block(0,0)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic--not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount fs on unknown-block(0,0)

I've Googled around for "VFS: Cannot open root device" and found suggestions to disable Advanced partition selection. This seemed promising so I recompiled without it. Another suggestion was to compile with cramfs, which I had deselected before, so I did this as well. I also did a "mkinitrd -o initrd.image-2.6.15 2.6.15" since I have an IDE disk which is the boot drive while the Linux drive is SATA.

After I did all of this, I get the following errors:

Code:

RAMDISK: cramfs filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 2724KiB [1 disk] into ram disk...done.
Kernel panic--not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount fs on unknown-block(0,0)

My root partition is hde5 in 2.4.27, so I've tried sda5 and sde5... and nothing.

Here's the GRUB options file:

Code:

title		Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.15
root		(hd1,9)
kernel		/vmlinuz-2.6.15 root=/dev/hde5 ro
initrd		/initrd.img-2.6.15
savedefault
boot

Any ideas are much appreciated.
Thanks

verbose · 05-07-2006, 12:44 AM

UPDATE:
I'm now getting the following errors:

Code:

FATAL: Kernel does not have unload support.
umount: devfs not mounted
mount: unknown filesystem type 'devfs'
pivot_root: No such file or directory.
/sbin/init: 431: cannot open /dev/console: No such file
Kernel panic--not syncing: Attempted to kill!

Really all I changed was I did 'make modules' whereas before I had only done 'make modules_install' as instructed by my trusty Linux Cookbook. I also did 'make install' instead of simply copying bzImage and System.map over to /boot.

raskin · 05-07-2006, 01:28 AM

Is it really hde?? Maybe hda? Or hdb? (seems hda, according to grub) If so, rollback all the changes and fix letter.

verbose · 05-07-2006, 02:29 AM

/dev/hda1 is the ide boot drive.
hde5 is definitely the root partition, according to df.

raskin · 05-07-2006, 09:25 AM

Then the naming in 2.6 is probably different. Maybe you can try 2.6 livecd and post here listing of /sys/block . And find in the directory something that has *5 partition (subdirectory). Maybe you should modprobe something first. Also, double-check that drivers for the hw are compiled in the kernel (or at least are modules included in initrd, but I find it easier to include everything critical in kernel).

Emerson · 05-07-2006, 09:29 AM

> VFS: Cannot open root device "hde5" or unkown-block(0,0)

This error usually implies kernel has no support for HDD controller or in case it is SATA generic SCSI support is missing.

verbose · 05-07-2006, 05:44 PM

When I try to boot now I get "Error 15: File not found." When I remove '/initrd.img-2.6.15' from GRUB, it boots but gets stuck at the normal kernel panic. I've compiled with initrd support and then I used mkinitrd to create the initrd image.

When I first installed Debian I was never able to get kernel 2.6 to detect my sata card so I was forced to use 2.4 and I've been stuck with it ever since.

Here's the lspci output for the sata card:

Code:

0000:01:0e.0 RAID bus controller: Silicon Image, Inc. (formerly CMD Technology Inc) SiI 3112 [SATALink/SATARaid] Serial ATA Controller (rev 01)

edit: I'm trying to set GRUB's root device and when I do root (hd1,<tab> it says the selected disk doesn't exist. It's the same case with hd0. I've had this working before.

verbose · 05-10-2006, 06:47 PM

Any other theories...

Thanks

Emerson · 05-10-2006, 07:18 PM

Not really. Do you have config file for your working kernel? If yes you could get some hints from there. BTW, don't even think you can do 'make oldconfig' with your old config file. It's not going to work. Start nicely from scratch, read help for every option and it should work (yes I know, it's going to take long).