Hi there, I have got a really strange problem.
For my setup, I need to edit the initrd image files when I update the kernel.
Today it gave me a very very very strange error on some (not all!) of my initrd files:
1) I unzipped them
2) I tried to mount the image with this command:
mount -o loop initrd-2.6.9-1.681_FC3smp.img /mnt/loop1
mount: you must specify the filesystem type

Funny thing is, I can't mount them but the kernel can boot with them without problems! I tried to remake some initrd's with mkinitrd, but I cannot mount the resulting files!

Does anybody have a clue how this could have happened?
And yes, my system is Fedora Core 3, Kernel 2.6.9 from Fedora.

TIA!
Citro

I've always used

mount initrd.img mountpoint -o loop

but I don't think the difference in order matters. I've never had to give a fs type option. You might try specifying the fstype with -t . I'll take your word you gunzipped them, as you obviously know that having the file gzipped will stop you cold. Odd. Do you have fs support for the initrd fs compiled in? Maybe the modules aren't loading if you don't.

Same problem, I would really like to see / edit my initrd. Using SuSE9.3 now, but I always had your same problem. Is there a "initrd fs" ??? I never heard nothing about that, and can't find it in my kernel.. still my running kernels boots using this initrd.. Wat fs is it?

I also tried to convert my SuSE system to reiser4..
changed the sysconfig so to include both reiserfs (currently used) and reiser4,
mkinird to update initrd modules .. it now includes reiser4 modules,
installed reiser4 progs,
then rebooted to gentoo,
mounted my suse system to /mnt,
tar to backup all data,
format as reiser4,
restore all data,
changed /etc/fstab so to have reiser4 instead of reiserfs on /,
reboot...

system panics because it can't find a reiserfs root... it must be some check in my initrd which I can't change?

I'm sorry I didn't post earlier, but I found out what it is: it's a cpio archive. use cpio's man page to find out how to extract the files

Greets, citro

PS: I think this would help you, too:
mkinitrd --with=<module_name> initrd <kernel>
Replace <module_name> with the name of the missing module and <kernel> with the kernel version number, for me this is "2.6.10-1.770_FC3smp" or similar. The whole command looks like this here:
mkinitrd --with=sata_sil --with=sd_mod initrd 2.6.10-1.770_FC3smp
and adds the two modules sata_sil and sd_mod to the initrd. Copy the resulting file "initrd" over to your boot directory and overwrite the existing initrd (BACKUP IT BEFORE OVERWRITING!)