2.6.3 can't mount root
 

I use Red hat 9.0, and I just compiled 2.6.3. When i boot, i get an error while mounting root. It tells me the label Linux could not be found, so root could not be mounted. Because of this it also tells me that the initrd couldn't be found, and to try using a init= to pass the init into the kernel. Here is my grub.conf:

default=2
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,4)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.6.3)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.3 ro root=LABEL=Linux hdd=ide-scsi
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.3.img
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=Linux hdd=ide-scsi
initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.20-8.img
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,3)
chainloader +1

2.4.20-8 still works fine, and it uses the label Linux as well. I did compile ext2 and ext3 file systems into the kernel, but i can't figure out why it won't find root.

You can try to change the line:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.3 ro root=LABEL=Linux hdd=ide-scsi

to:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.3 ro root=/dev/hdad hdd=ide-scsi

and see if you can boot. This should allow you to relabel the partition

% /sbin/e2label /dev/hdad Linux

You can then see if you can switch grub.conf back, but I don't really see the point if it boots the other way.

Note: I based the /dev/hdad on the root(hd0,4). If this is incorrect, then replace /dev/hdad with the proper partition.

Hope this helps,

Forrest

As an update, this is exactly the errors i get:

creating root device
Mounting root filesystem
moutn: error 6 mounting ext2
pivot root: pivot_root (/sysroot/, /sysroot/initrd) failed: 2
umount /initrd/proc failed: 2
freeing unused kernel memory: 153k freed
kernel panic: no init found. Try passing init= option to kernel

This happened even when i replaced root=LABEL=Linux with the partition number (/dev/hdad)...The problem shouldn't be the Label anyway, because my old kernel uses the same label and works fine. Any more help is appreciated, I'm going to look up the mount error code 6 and see what it is...

OK, with those added details, it sounds like you have compiled something as a module that you need at boot time. (Anything that is needed before the disks can be read can't be compiled as a module). You need to go back through your compile process and look for anything that you compiled as a module that might be needed early on in the boot process and change it to not be a module.

(One example, ext2 can't be compiled as a module since it is needed to read the disk and therefore you can't read the disk to load the module until it is loaded.....)

Hope this helps,

Forrest

creating root device
Mounting root filesystem
moutn: error 6 mounting ext2
pivot root: pivot_root (/sysroot/, /sysroot/initrd) failed: 2
umount /initrd/proc failed: 2
freeing unused kernel memory: 153k freed
kernel panic: no init found. Try passing init= option to kernel,me 2,david

Well, it doesn't really matter to me anymore, I switched over to Slackware, as I've been wanting to try it for a while now, and I compiled and install 2.6.3 just fine.

Might have two root labels
 

When I had this problem it was caused by having two disks with the same label.

Paul Sundling