Gentoo GRUB wont boot
 

Hi i'm almost home with my gentoo install and have come to the bootloader... unfortunately (though not unsurprisingly) it failed It went through the detection of my other drvies like my cdrom etc.... but then it stalls on the following error :

VFS: can not open root device or unknown block (0,0)

I have double checked to make sure the config file is pointing to the right locations my fdisk is as follows:


Disk /dev/hda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 1324 10634998+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 1325 7698 51199155 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda3 7699 24321 133524247+ 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 7699 7711 104391 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 7712 7774 506016 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda7 7775 8383 4891761 83 Linux


hda5 is my /boot
hda7 is my /

my grub conf file is as follows

# Which listing to boot as default. 0 is the first, 1 the second etc.
default 1
# How many seconds to wait before the default listing is booted.
timeout 30
# Nice, fat splash-image to spice things up
# Comment out if you don't have a graphics card installed
splashimage=(hd0,4)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.16-r13
# Partition where the kernel image (or operating system) is located
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.16-gentoo-r13 root=/dev/hda5

# The next four lines are only if you dualboot with a Windows system.
# In this case, Windows is hosted on /dev/hda6.
title=Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1



what am i doing wrong or have i compiled a kernel that doesnt support ext3 or something silly? i have tried using the GRUB editor during boot to change hda5 to hda7 but its still stalls on bootup. Could it be fstab? I'm relatively new to compiling my kernel and dont know if i've bungled it up. Previous issues of this in linuxquestions seem to be related to SATA drives and people already having working kernels. I was trying to compile one from fresh so I dont know if this is a different problem.

I'm sooooo close , please help!

First:
should be /dev/hda7 this must point to your / partition.

Second:
It is usualy considered good practice in gentoo (on x86) to make /boot ext2. and / whatever filesystem you want to use. the kernel wouldn't support anything other then ext2 unless you enabled it when you compiled the kernel. so unless you made it support ext3 it probably doesn't to find out if your kernel supports ext3 boot the livecd and do this:
if it doesn't spit out something like:
then that's your problem.

I would redo the /boot partition as ext2 then make sure you have the filesystems you want to use enabled before you compile and install the kernel.

Edit:
Can you boot Windows from grub?

Windows boots up fine with GRUB, i shall try the commands you suggested and will post back.

I've tried the commands and its says no such file or directory. I gues i'll have to redo everything. I think i remmeber foramtting under ext3 accidentally and thinking it should be okay as it was backwards compatible. bummer.

I'm a little confused as to which point in the handbook I am using things from the cd. I only seem to be working with downloaded files throughout the install. I dont know how the system gets information from the gentoo (or is it the knoppix) livecd :S

You don't have to start over, just add support for the filesystem into the kernel.
Boot the install cd (I like the install min)
http://gentoo.osuosl.org/releases/x8...-r1/installcd/
Then chroot over;
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handboo...?part=1&chap=6
redo your kernel;
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handboo...?part=1&chap=7
exit the chroot and reboot;
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handboo...chap=10#reboot
have fun...

comprookie2000, i'm afraid i saw your post too late but i redid everything from the start so i can check i did everything right anyways, made the /boot ext2 and / ext3.

grub loads and gives an error like this :


loading....

root (hd0,4)
kernel-2.6.16-gentoo-r13 /dev/hda7

error 15 : file not found

grub counts like this
0,1,2,3,4,5
so
hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 hda5
so if boot is on hda5 0,4
the next partition is hda6
but that may not be your problem just something to look at.
I think you forgot this;
kernel-2.6.16-gentoo-r13 /dev/hda7
should it be;
/boot/kernel-2.6.16-gentoo-r13 /dev/hda7
Most install with windows like this
(hd0,0)/dev/hda1(windows)(hd0,1)/dev/hda2(boot)(hd0,2)/dev/hda3(swap)(hd0,3)/dev/hda4(/)

The output error was not correctly copied word for word. The kernel-2.6.16 line is as you suggested. I was being lazy and didnt type it word for word as there wasnt a way of cutting and pasting at the boot screen. :)


Hmmm i cant seem to access the / partition in knoppix is complains that "could not mount: mount: i could not determine the filesystem type, and none was specified"

also when i try to mount using mount it says this:

root@1[knoppix]# mount -t ext3 /dev/hda7 /mnt/gentoo
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda7,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so


does this mean it didnt format my / partition properly? :( not another install! argh!

thanks.

Just to let you know, i redid the whole install process and found out that I missed something crucial. After the compile the kernel wasnt copied to the boot partition. So obviously thats why it was moaing about not finding the file and why it couldnt read the ext3 partition.


Hope no one makes the same silly mistake, but i thought i might add this to help anyone who might have.

Thanks for all the help.