Kernel Panic on boot

JenovaProject · 02-28-2008, 01:12 AM

Hi everyone,

This is my first time installing a LFS distro. With the exception of creating a separate partition for the /boot and /home directories (and using the more up to date kernel 2.6.24.2) I have followed the book (6.3) exactly. I got through the book ok (everything compiled fine and there were no errors) however when I try to boot the LFS system I get the following error:

Code:

VFS: Cannot open root device "sda6" or unknown-block(0-0)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option: here are the available partitions:
Kernel Panic - Not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0-0)

The following is the contents of my /boot/grub/menu.lst and /etc/fstab files, as well as the output from the fdisk -l command:

Code:

# Begin /boot/grub/menu.lst

# By default boot the first menu entry.
default 0

# Allow 30 seconds before booting the default.
timeout 30

# Use prettier colors.
color green/black light-green/black

# The first entry is for LFS.
title LFS 6.3
root (hd0,1)
kernel /lfskernel-2.6.24.2 root=/dev/sda6

title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

Code:

# Begin /etc/fstab

# file system  mount-point  type   options         dump  fsck
#                                                        order

/dev/sda6      /            ext3   defaults        1     1
/dev/sda2      /boot        ext3   defaults        1     1
/dev/sda7      /home        ext3   defaults        1     1
/dev/sds5      swap         swap   pri=1           0     0
proc           /proc        proc   defaults        0     0
sysfs          /sys         sysfs  defaults        0     0
devpts         /dev/pts     devpts gid=4,mode=620  0     0
shm            /dev/shm     tmpfs  defaults        0     0
# End /etc/fstab

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1       10199    81923436    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2           10200       10218      152617+  83  Linux
/dev/sda3           10219       17545    58854127+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5           10219       10409     1534176   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6           10410       11429     8193118+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7           11430       17545    49126738+  83  Linux

The windows partition loads without any problems.

I have tried re-compiling the kernel several times in case I selected the wrong configuration options although I keep getting the same error.

Does anyone know what is wrong or how I can fix this?

druuna · 02-28-2008, 06:23 AM

Hi,

I don't think this is a kernel problem, but rather a grub config error. It seems that you have a / (root) partition and a separate /boot partition. I'm doing this from the top of my head, but this:

kernel /lfskernel-2.6.24.2 root=/dev/sda6

looks incorrect, shouldn't that be:

kernel /boot/lfskernel-2.6.24.2 root=/dev/sda6

Hope this helps.

JenovaProject · 02-28-2008, 06:11 PM

Thanks for the suggestion. However when I made the change I got the following grub error:

Error 15: File not found

I think its because grub is being directed to load the the boot partition which is mounted at /boot (which therefore isn't included in the path to the kernel). However, does this mean that the 'root=/dev/sda6' command could be the problem (is there any way to access /dev...)?

druuna · 02-29-2008, 12:32 AM

Hi,

I've got this on one of my boxes:

/ is on /dev/hda2
/boot is on /dev/hda3

Part from the menu.lst

root (hd0,2)
kernel /kernel-2.6.11.12 root=/dev/hda2

Which also tells us that my 'from-the-top-of-my-head' answer was incorrect.