Hello,

Running cooker for at least 1 year, no probs.
Yesterday urpmi --auto-update stalled half way.
Other symptom : could not su to root in another existing console.
System sort of locked itself.

Now, with the 5 or 6 kernel, even failsafe, I get :
"Kernel Panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)"

What can I do ? I cannot make sense of the problem.

I booted a USB key mandy 2011.0 then chroot to cooker
e2fsck -cv /dev/sda5
gives 0 bad blocks
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
I finished the urpmi auto-update chrooted

I am not very good with grub.

I have zinblows7 bootloader (I never use w7 but kept it in case).
I dd the 512 bytes of the linux boot into a window chos boot.img a while ago.
w7 gives me a boot choice to grub.

Grub still starts ok, and gives me choices
# cat /boot/grub/menu.lst | grep title
title failsafe
title windows
title linux
title 2.6.38.7-desktop586-1mnb2
title 3.1.5-1.1-generic
title 3.2.2-1.1-generic
title 3.2.5-1.1-generic
title 3.2.7-1.1-generic
title 3.3.1-1.1-desktop
title 3.3.1-1.1-generic

My dd of grub is about a month old (sometimes I have to do it again because of a bug)

I currently have
/dev/sda1 * 2048 81915434 40956693+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 81915435 594198527 256141546+ f W95 étendue (LBA)
/dev/sda3 594198528 625142447 15471960 12 Compaq diagnostics
/dev/sda5 81915498 122865119 20474811 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 530190336 594198527 32004096 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda7 122865183 131042204 4088511 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8 131042268 171991889 20474811 83 Linux

sda5 is /
sda8 is /home

I cannot make sense of this.
This cannot be a grub problem since I can start until I get the kernel panic.
Why all kernel go crazy ?
Hardware seems ok since I can post from the usb booted keydrive live version

Menu.lst points the right hard drive I believe since each title in menu.lst is like this
title 3.2.5-1.1-generic
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz-3.2.5-1.1-generic BOOT_IMAGE=3.2.5-1.1-generic root=UUID=takenaway nosmp resume=UUID=removedID splash=silent vga=788
root (hd0,4)
initrd /boot/initrd-3.2.5-1.1-generic.img

root (hd0,4)


Thanks

============== edit more information ================
Chrooted from the usb keydrive
# urpmi --verbose --auto-update
Certains paquetages demandés ne peuvent pas être installés*:
gnome-panel2-2.32.1-6-mdv2012.0.i586 (car gnome-menus2 est non satisfait)
gnome-python-applet-2.32.0-6-mdv2012.0.i586 (en raison de conflit avec gnome-panel2-2.32.1-6-mdv2012.0.i586)
libgck1_0-3.2.2-3-mdv2012.0.i586 (car libp11-kit.so.0 est non satisfait)
Désirez-vous tout de même continuer*? (O/n) o
Pour satisfaire les dépendances, les paquetages suivants vont être installés*:
Paquetage Version Révision Dist DEpoch Arch
(média «*Main*»)
gnome-python-desktop 2.32.0 6 mdv 2012.0 i586
gnome-utils 3.2.1 1 mdv 2012.0 i586
libgcr3_1 3.2.2 3 mdv 2012.0 i586
libgdict1.0_6 3.2.1 1 mdv 2012.0 i586
libk3bdevice6 2.0.2 5 mdv 2012.0 i586
libk3blib6 2.0.2 5 mdv 2012.0 i586
libkcddb4 4.8.1 1 mdv 2012.0 i586
x11-xtrans-devel 1.2.7 1 mdv 2012.0 i586

============== edit2 more information ================
Chrooted from the usb keydrive
removed one or two packages with urpme then
# rpm --rebuilddb
and then
# urpmi --verbose --auto-update
all made the update fully ok
but still does not boot

Edit3 : Reported as bug : cannot make sense of this

https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=65487

Hi, The most obvious question for me is, have you tried the kernel commandline switches?

Like "nomsi", I had an asus board once, (too new for the current kernel, back then) and as well as sata modules, ahci and libsata(now depreciated, iirc).

Also, mentioning those modules, do you have the HD chipset set in bios to sata or ahci?

I once had to install, set as sata in bios, and change to ahci after first/before next reboot.

I know you're experienced, sorry if this is nonsense.

Regards Glenn

ps, Oh Yeah, could it be that the uuid block number has changed?

Check to be sure that the number is the same in grub as in /etc/fstab.

GW

Is that exactly as it is ?. Or is the "root (hd0,4)" a typo ?.
Would explain the symptoms (no initrd effectively). If it is true, move the "root (hd0,4)" line before the "kernel" line.

However, I didn't know what cooker is, so I went and had a look. Found this self explanatory note on the wiki:

Hi thanks all

No uuid issue (checked with blkid), no kernel command line issue (old kernel still present did not need any special parameters.

Indeed two errors generated by mandriva
root (hd0,4) not needed
and (hd0,4) missing before /boot/initrd-3.2.5-1.1-generic.img

I have corrected all 6 kernels. Still kernel panic.

Any idea?

edit :
chrooted
then /boot/grub/install.sh
then dd if=/dev/sda5 of=/media/zinblows/boot.data bs=512 count=1
So to remake my grub (just in case)

No luck stil kernel panic
Thanks

The 6 initrd are 27 bytes in size
This were it has gone wrong

I downloaded kernel3.3.2-1.1-generic
it installed partly
I can go as far as drakcut now

Nota : I have no internet connection when chrooted
the usb live konsole as root is internet able and so is mandriva on the usb key

Exploring urpmi --urpmi-root and urpmi -root

solved
downloaded on a usb kernel3source.rpm

booted from usb key
mount the / partition of laptop
chroot to / of laptop
urpmi kernel3source.rpm
rewrite device.map (it was 0 bytes)
cd /usr/src/kernel3
make
make modules_install
Then necessary otherwise there is confusion between / of usb and / of chroot
# mount -t sysfs none /sys
# mount -t proc none /proc
make install
mkinitrd -f /boot/initrd-3.3.2-test.img 3.3.2-test

Son of a Gun!