Please read this thread for the details:

forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-10380-postdays-0-postorder-asc-highlight-compaq+raid-start-0.html

I have an HP Proliant DL380 that is replacing a DL360. I have built and booted over 10 DL 360's in this configuration so I don't know what gives with this 380.

According to all 100 posts or so in that thread, it should be as simple as substituting /dev/cciss/discX/partX for /dev/cciss/c0d0pX when specifying a ROOT partition in Lilo. I have done and doublechecked this many many many many many many many many many times yet I boot to the same kernel panic message EVERY single time I boot:

VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem).
VFS: Cannot open root device "cciss/c0d0p3" or 68:03
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: unable to mount root fs on 68:03

I have diddled lilo, edited fstab, put symlinks in the /dev tree pointing to c0d0pX, and done everything else I can think of. I think that for some reason the system is attempting to find the root partition BEFORE the RAID controller is up and running. What parameters can I pass to the kernel at boot time to reverse this. I was able to fdisk, format, mount, use, modify my drive using the Gentoo LiveCD so I know HW support isn't the issue, but this is absolutely driving me bananas. Please help!

Thanks.

It sounds to me like either your cciss driver is compiled as a module and your not using an initrd or it isn't compiled in there at all. Is there any way you can post your kernel configuration file somewhere so I can take a look? I've used Gentoo and Redhat on many a DL380 G3 and G4 so I am quite confident there is a solution to this problem.

John

You were exactly right - I don't know how I got set up with the 2.6.9 kernel I was booting from, but I was installing a custom stage4 (which I didn't build) and didn't know where the boot_copy was stowed. I found it, and copied that to /boot, edited lilo.conf for the proper drive syntax and presto! Problem solved. Thanks very much for your help. For the record - how do I get the output of my kernel config should I need to send it to you? I don't have much experience compiling kernels, or working with them - I let either red hat do it or I've used genkernel. Every time I've tried to build and boot from my own kernel, my system has gone down in flames. I typically use the apps that run over linux (NMIS, Apache, MRTG, MySql) so I try to avoid kernel compilation unless absolutely necessary. Thanks very, very much for your prompt reply

In the root of the source (the directory where you typically would do the make) there will be a .config file which has the kernel configuration. Newer kernels support providing the config via /proc/config or /proc/config.gz when they are running.