Fedora 8 boot failure. "switchroot: mount failed..."
 

After installing XP on a system (In it's own partition, naturally.) and having a period without Linux, I reinstalled GRUB and tried to boot Fedora.

In the belief that I'd b0rked the Fedora install, I reinstalled.
Unfortunately, I get the same message every single time I try to boot.

could someone please help me fix it? I'm suffering from GNU/Linux-deprivation... :(

I have seen the same errors you are experiencing when the initrd image is not correct. This could happen as a result of a change in partition or drive information. Here is one way to fix it.

1) Boot using install DVD or rescue CD in rescue mode. When it asks if you should find Fedora installations click on continue so it mounts the installation to /mnt/sysimage.
2) At the command line chroot to /mnt/sysimage.
3) cd /boot, then determine kernel version using ls vmlinuz*
4) mv initrd-2.6.x.x-x.fc8.img initrd-2.6.x.x-x.fc8.old
5) mkinitrd initrd-2.6.x.x-x.fc8.img 2.6.x.x-x.fc8
6) exit, exit and it should reboot.

replace all above x.x.x-x with the latest kernel version-release you have installed.

Bill

OK, thanks. I'll try that when I get back home.
:)

It hasn't worked. :(
when I try to chroot /mnt/sysimage it throws an error message about not being able to find /bin/sh. (IIRC.)

I will try again later and note down the error message(s).

If it does that again try chroot /mnt/sysimage /bin/bash.

"An error occured trying to mount some or all of your system, some of it may be located under /mnt/sysimage.
Press return to get a shell. The system will reboot automatically when you exit from the shell."

In /mnt/sysimage there is only sys, proc and something else, but I can't remember what it is right now.

I mounted /dev/sda2 on /mnt/system, and chrooted into that. However, as sys was elsewhere (/mnt/sysimage) mkinitrd failed with:
"error opening /sys/block: no such file or directory."

That is a bummer... As you have figured out, the / and several virtual filesystems need to be mounted in order to use mkinitrd. Rescue mode can usually handle that without much trouble. I don't know the particulars behind mounting /proc, /sys, and any others. If we knew that we could do it all manually since you were able to mount /dev/sda2. I'd fire up rescue mode on my installation, but I had a CPU take a dive and am running off a temporary setup with no CD/DVD drives. Sorry I can't be much help at the moment. If that changes or I get other ideas I'll post them.

I really believe making a new initrd image will solve the problems you are having. The other solution, if you don't have anything major to lose, would be to reinstall Fedora.

Bill

That's the thing, this *is* a fresh re-install...
:(

SOLVED. I think...
 

I re-installed again, this time the home partition is on the same disc as the OS.
This has booted perfectly *knocks on wood* and I have come to the conclusion that either I did the setup wrong OR that the previous configurations depended on /home being on sdb1.
The drive that used to be sdb has failed (possibly one of a dodgy batch (it's only 2 years old.)), taking /home with it. I had tried to reconfigure around this, but failed.

Therefore, this case is closed! I have Fedora again!

Fedora 8? Are you kidding? It's a 3-year-old release! It is about as EOL as Ubuntu Feisty. Try upgrading to at least F13 or many security flaws that have occurred especially with Red Hat-based Linux distributions (see this for more information) will easily catch up to you.

@ Kenny_Strawn , post # 11 : This is a thread from May 2007.

And @roost is not using Fedora 8. @roost is a spammer.
Please see other posts by @roost, if they are not already deleted.

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