Unable to boot on vmware workstation 6.5. kernel panic
 

Hi everybody,
i'm unable to boot the LFS-6.6 which i've built on a vmware workstation 6.5. i had no trouble in installing all the packages and have managed to run all the test suites successfully w.r.t stable LFS-6.6. while booting i get 'kernel panic' and it says unknown device /dev/sda1 and unknow block (0,0). i've only one primary partition without any swap partition. i've a label assigned to /dev/sda1 and have included it in my fstab file. device.map shows 2 entries:
one for the floppy and the other for my harddisk which is- hd0 /dev/sda. this is for the 2nd time i'm stuck at a point after perfectly installing all the stuff as mentioned in the LFS-6.6 book. i've also noticed on this website the many users have similar type of issue. it would be great if somebody could help me.
note: while configuring the linux, i've inbuilt everything required for my system, including support for ramfs and other required filesystems, scsi driver etc.
my host machine is on a intel core 2 duo processor. my virtual scsi hard disk is 3 GB in size and is a ext3 fs. scsi is configured with LSI Logic which is recommended by vmware while adding an hard-disk.
live curious,
Kiran.

Sorry, is this a Guest OS? If so it might be worth seeing if you can boot the virtual machine in a recovery mode, single user mode or with a live distribution and seeing just how the underlying /dev/ appears to assign the hard drive. It's not always a case of the host OS assigning the virtual disc image as /dev/sdaX (I know xen for example uses /dev/xvdaX by default) so that would be my first suggestion.

Thank you for your reply. I've tired booting in recovery mode, but it doesn't help. I'm using the lfslivecd-x86-6.3-r2160.iso as my host.
under the host system, sda is under /dev. My host system has no problem in booting up. Pls view the snapshot 'recovery-mode' under attachments which is the result tring recovery mode.
Let me be more clearer this time:
VFS: Cannot open root device "sda1" or unknown-block(0,0)
Please append a correct "root-" boot options; ...
Please refer to the screenshot attached 'while booting.kernel.panic' under attachments.
THIS IS HOW MY /etc/fstab file look like:
# Begin /etc/fstab

# file system mount-point type options dump fsck order
# ============ =========== ===== ======= ==== =========
/dev/sda1 / ext3 defaults 1 1
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=4,mode=620 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0

# End /etc/fstab

Under 'file system' I've tried various options like using the LABEL=<label> and UUID=<uuid> but doesn't help.

'blkid':
/dev/loop0: UUID="0e10971e-e20f-4638-b5bf-9010e22bd034" TYPE="ext2"
/dev/loop1: TYPE="DM_snapshot_cow"
/dev/sda1: LABEL="bootme" UUID="1e8fb2a4-2841-4044-89a8-c2a413e011d2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/mapper/lfs-cd: UUID="0e10971e-e20f-4638-b5bf-9010e22bd034" TYPE="ext2"
/dev/sdc1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="SK" UUID="F8CE-C51E" TYPE="vfat"
/boot/grub/grub.cfg file contains:
#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
set default=0
set timeout=5
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry "GNU/Linux, with Linux 2.6.34.1-lfs-6.6" {
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 1e8fb2a4-2841-4044-89a8-c2a413e011d2
linux /boot/vmlinux-2.6.34.1-lfs-6.6 root=/dev/sda1 ro
}
menuentry "GNU/Linux, with Linux 2.6.34.1-lfs-6.6 (recovery mode)" {
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 1e8fb2a4-2841-4044-89a8-c2a413e011d2
linux /boot/vmlinux-2.6.34.1-lfs-6.6 root=/dev/sda1 ro single
}
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###

contents of device.map:
(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/sda

contents of /etc/inittab:
# Begin /etc/inittab

id:3:initdefault:

si::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc sysinit

10:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 0
11:S1:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 1
12:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 2
13:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 3
14:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 4
15:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 5
16:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc 6

ca:12345:ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t1 -a -r now

su:S016:once:/sbin/sulogin

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty1 9600
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty2 9600
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty3 9600
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty4 9600
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty5 9600
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty tty6 9600

# End /etc/inittab


ANY HELP??

issue with vmware
 

I had to change my harddisk type to IDE as vmware wasn't detecting a SCSI hard disk. The issue was also with the bzimage or vmlinux, the linux kernel image. i went through the .config file of a working linux os and made the require changes. now my LFS-6.6 is bootable and independent :). now looking forward for BLFS.
live curious,
Kiran.

To fix this without changing to an IDE disk (keep SCSI), make sure the following options are enabled in the kernel config:

Device Drivers --->[*] Fusion MPT device support --->
<*> Fusion MPT ScsiHost drivers for SPI
<*> Fusion MPT ScsiHost drivers for FC
<*> Fusion MPT ScsiHost drivers for SAS

If you enable these on top of the "make defconfig" kernel, it should work.
Note that I'm using VMWare Player 3.1.4 and Linux 2.6.37.2.