I'm trying to boot from a USB stick and I'm only half way through.
I've put lilo (22.5.9), it loads the kernel, initrd and loads the modules I've put in initrd (uhci, usbcore, usb-storage, ide-scsi) but ends with this error:
"
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k block-major-8, errno=2
VFS: Cannot open root device "801" or 08:01
Please append correct "root=" boot option
"

In lilo.conf I have the following:
"
boot = /dev/sda
append="ide=nodma ramdisk_size=4000"
image = /boot/vmlinuz
initrd=/boot/initrd.gz
root = /dev/sda1
label = Linux
"

What could be the problem?

Thanks,
Bogdan

I forgot to add I used slackware 10.0 witn 2.4.26 kernel.

Yeah, booting from USB is not easily done. The usb modules run asynchronously, so booting proceeds without it having detected the usb disk.

Essentially, the kernel loads the usb modules and probes for usb devices in the background. This generally takes from 3-10 seconds, depending on chipsets, CPU speed, etc.

Unfortunately, within (generally) 1-2 seconds of loading those usb modules, you're trying to mount the partition. Because probing for USB devices has not finished, it ends up being unable to find/mount the partition.

Long story short, you either need to hack the kernel usb modules, kernel mounting code, or modify your initrd to delay mounting of the root device.

Why not just compile USB Mass Storage support into the kernel instead of using modules for it in the first place?

Even with it in kernel, it still probes for devices asynchronously. There's a patch out there somewhere where the kernel loops for about 10 seconds, retrying to mount / before giving up.

A "sleep 5" in linuxrc solved the problem.

Thank you for your response,
Bogdan

No problem. Glad you had better success than I ever did. I could do "sleep 30" and it still wouldn't work for some reason I could never figure out. *shrug* I should revisit it sometime.