Server down, unable to mount root, kernel panic
 

Hi all,

I'm receiving the following error on a server:
VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown wn-block (0,0)

Ubuntu 10.04LTS, 64-bit, on a Dell PowerEdge server. Two drives, mirrored RAID through the hardware, and Ubuntu installed as an LVM.

I've been doing some troubleshooting, including attempting a boot repair with the Ubuntu Secure CD, and haven't had much luck. The boot repair generated the following information about my drive setup, etc:

http://paste.ubuntu.com/1412961/

www-root shows up as an unknown file system. I have been able to get at the files with no problems through the live/boot CD, and I've scp'd off what I needed to keep from this server. I'm hoping I can get this back up and running, though.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Mike

Hello MikeOliveriRB, welcome to LQ,

This errormessage means either the module/driver for the harddrive is missing or the module for the filesystem is missing.
You should with a live-CD take a look at and find out which module is in use for the disk. Then check the Ubuntu kernel if it has this driver compiled in. The most common problem in this case is, that the driver for the harddisk is compiled as a module, but it is necessary to have it compiled into the kernel (or to use an initrd).

If you use a generic kernel and an initrd, you'll probably have to rebuild the initrd.

Markus

Using the Ubuntu Secure boot CD, I ran lspci but it didn't produce any results when using grep for sata.

I did find the RAID controller listed, which says it is using the kernel module mptsas.

Thanks,
Mike