Compiled Kernel: Kernel panic Unable to mount root fs on 08:02

pobrika · 05-23-2008, 05:42 AM

Hello,

I have been struggling with building a kernel all week and finally decided tom ask for help after trawling the net for hours on end.

Seems there are many people with the same problem but I still can not find a solution for my boot issue.

I have a RHEL3 server which has kernel 2.4.21 installed.
I have a brainbox serial card which needs to be setup on this server but, brainbox only support the 2.4.24 or 2.4.25 kernel with their patches.

I decide to do test on a VM machine to create a bootable kernel as this is my first time building a kernel.

The VM has a scsi disk drive which is similar to to the real server.

I have compiled what I thought was all the required drivers for scsi ext3 and ide as (y) not modules but after the kernel is installed it fails to boot which I have put down to not being able to mount the scsi disk.

I have amended my grub.conf as follows.

Code:

title Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES (2.4.25.EL)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.25.EL ro root=/dev/sda2
        initrd /initrd-2.4.25.img
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES (2.4.21-47.EL)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.21-47.EL ro root=LABEL=/
        initrd /initrd-2.4.21-47.EL.img

Here is a dump of a succesful boot from dmesg

Code:

VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
Fusion MPT base driver 2.06.16.02
Copyright (c) 1999-2005 LSI Logic
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 00:10.0
mptbase: Initiating ioc0 bringup
ioc0: 53C1030: Capabilities={Initiator}
mptbase: 1 MPT adapter found, 1 installed.
Fusion MPT SCSI Host driver 2.06.16.02
scsi0 : ioc0: LSI53C1030, FwRev=00000000h, Ports=1, MaxQ=128, IRQ=9
blk: queue c177c414, I/O limit 4294967295Mb (mask 0xffffffffffffffff)
  Vendor: VMware,   Model: VMware Virtual S  Rev: 1.0
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
blk: queue c177c614, I/O limit 4294967295Mb (mask 0xffffffffffffffff)
Attached scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
SCSI device sda: 12582912 512-byte hdwr sectors (6442 MB)
Partition check:
 sda: sda1 sda2 sda3

I am unsure what I am not wrong now, Please help.

stefan_nicolau · 05-23-2008, 07:01 AM

Can you please tell us how your system is failing to boot?

pobrika · 05-23-2008, 07:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stefan_nicolau

Can you please tell us how your system is failing to boot?

Sorry thought I had with the title kernel panick unable to mount root 08:02

anyway I have manged to get the system to boot now as I have found the fusion scsi driver but I am now hanging on INITL Id "1" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes. this is on all ttys 1,2,3,4,5,6

stefan_nicolau · 05-23-2008, 02:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pobrika

Sorry thought I had with the title kernel panick unable to mount root 08:02

Yes, but 'unable to mount root' may be due to lots of causes (eg. no scsi support, no proper filesystem support, wrong order in detecting partitions, etc.). The previous messages would be required to diagnose the problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pobrika

anyway I have manged to get the system to boot now as I have found the fusion scsi driver but I am now hanging on INITL Id "1" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes. this is on all ttys 1,2,3,4,5,6

What is your /etc/inittab or /etc/event.d?
Are all your partitions mounted properly?