Kernel Panic: VFS: unable to mount root on 08:08, on first boot right after slack...
good evening everyone,
i am rather tired after 12hours of countless tries to install slackware 10.2 on a pc that has winXP and used to have slackware too. the problem is that as soon as i finish the installation and i reboot, lilo pops up nicely (last try i even attempted to let lilo configure itself on its own, i only checked that it would put itself in the MBR - master boot record), and gives me the options to boot windows or linux, if i choose linux somebit later on, boot stops and i get an error. Kernel Panic: VFS: unable to mount root at /dev/sda8 or 08:08. please attempt to input another 'root=' option.... truth is this is my 3rd slackware 10.2 installation and my 2nd one of this specific machine, so i felt confident i could solve it. at this point however (After 12h) i think i really need some help. here are the facts: the system has a SATA drive and so i start the installation with sata.i . i do fdisk /dev/sda so i see the 3 ntfs particions sda1, sda5, sda6 and the linux swap sda7 and the linux sda8 partitions. i had already made a linux particion with partition magic from winxp. so no need to change smth with fdisk, i run setup and do it correctly i believe.. once it asks me what kernel to use i tell it to skip the step and keep the DEFAULT (is that right? i think it keeps sata.i ... right?) then packages installations and finally liloconfig. i choose expert mode, place the boot file in MBR - i think at this point it asks about the location and says it has figured the location /dev/sda as being the correct one and that i i want i can change it), begin the lilo file (no addit. params.), add a linux partition (/dev/sda8), add a win partition, install lilo, and finally reboot. so lilo pops up and i choose linux... and you know the rest... where do you think i've done fault? nass |
hmm sounds like its trying to mount the root partition without having the sata modules. Here is a guide patrick wrote for just your problem.
Quote:
|
Some SATA drives just simply will not detect correctly. I belive this is due to kind of "driver" (because I don't know the real term) type issue with the BIOS and the SATA controler. You might want to try different kernels and see what happens. Some times the SATA drive will show up as a SCSI.
Another thing to consider is the file system of the root partition. I don't think you mentioned what it is formated as. Is it a standard ext2 or ext3? Best regards, ...drkstr |
thank you both for the replies,
but really the problem here is that i can't boot to linux at all... if i can't mount the root straight after the installation then i don't have any linux system to work on and tamper with the kernel. the fault must have been made during the installation and so it was. apparently when the installation asked me which kernel to load i went and explicitly re-choose sata.i that made it... phew! thanks again |
Ah. I thought you chose sata.i to begin with, but I missed the part where you said you skipped the kernel selection. Glad you got it working!
Quote:
Code:
mkdir /mnt/slack Best regards, ...drkstr |
Quote:
Hi, When you come to the kernel selection, try to select the kernel you wish to use. You will get the option to select from the cdrom and you should select the one you desire to use. The error you get is that the root filesystem is not there. As others have pointed out you need to have the filesystem available at boot for the kernel. You could use the install cd1 to boot then mount your installation then chroot to it. Then create your initrd as per the /boot/README.initrd file. You could do a search on LQ as this has been covered a lot. |
Quote:
Code:
boot:sata.i root=/dev/sdaN # N = your root partition You can either keep booting from the CD until you get it sorted out or boot from the CD once then copy /kernels/sata.i/bzImage to your /boot directory and update/run lilo.conf. With the fstab problem I could boot the generic sata.i kernel (?), but could not boot my own sata kernel. I changed my fstab and lilo.conf to /dev/sdaN and it worked with my kernel. Interestingly enough hdparam -i /dev/sda told me the mode was 'unknown' using sata.i , now I try to run: Code:
root@hargrave:/home/perry# hdparm -i /dev/sda Code:
root@hargrave:/home/perry# hdparm -I /dev/sda thanks! |
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 12:20 PM. |