I just imaged my RHEL 4 system that was running on a Dell Poweredge 2950 server using Acronis software and I restored the image to a VmWare virtual machine.

Dell Poweredge 2950 - RAID 5
VmWare - using ESX 4.0

OS - Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 ES Update 5 x64
kernel - 2.6.9-55.0.9.ELsmp

I'm getting the following when I try to boot on the new virtual machine. I'm thinking it has to do with the fact that it's new hardware and it's having trouble either finding the right drivers or pointing to the correct place.

"No Volume Groups found
Volume Group "Volgroup00" not found
ERROR: /bin/lvm exited abnormally! (pid505)
mount: error 6 mounting ext3
mount: error 2 mounting none
switchroot: mount failed: 22
umount /initrd/dev failed: 2

Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!"
------------------------------------------------------------------
I was able to boot into Linux rescue mode using the boot CD. Then I typed:
#chroot /mnt/sysimage

Here's all the info from the commands I typed:

#ldd /bin/bash

libtermcap.so.2 => /lib64/libtermcap.so.2
libdl.so.2 => /lib64/libdl.so.2
libc.so.6 => /lib64/tls/libc.so.6
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2

#uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.9-89.EL x86_64

#df -h

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/volgroup00/logvol00
4.0G 3.2G 558M 86% /

/dev/sda3 190M 41M 140M 23% /boot
/dev/volgroup00/logvol05
6.9G 117M 6.5G 2% /home
/dev/volgroup00/logvol03
4.0G 78M 3.7G 3% /tmp
/dev/volgroup00/logvol06
109G 14G 89G 14% /u01
/dev/volgroup00/logvol02
7.9G 3.5G 4.1G 46% /usr
/dev/volgroup00/logvol04
4.0G 1.4G 2.4G 37% /var


#fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 740.8GB
255 heads, 63 sectors per track, 90073 cylinders

Device Boot Start End Blocks ID System
/dev/sda1 1 8 64228 de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 9 531 4200997 8e Linux LVM
/dev/sda3 * 532 556 200812 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 557 90074 719051370 5 Extended
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/sda5 557 88849 709213491 8e Linux LVM


#cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES Release 4 (Update 5)

#cat /etc/fstab

#This file is edited by fstab-sync

/dev/volgroup00/logvol00 / ext3 Defaults
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults
/dev/volgroup00/logvol05 /home ext3 defaults
none /proc proc defaults
none /sys sysfs defaults
/dev/volgroup00/logvol03 /tmp ext3 defaults
/dev/volgroup00/logvol02 /usr ext3 defaults
/dev/volgroup00/logvol04 /var ext3 defaults
/dev/volgroup00/logvol01 swap swap defaults
/dev/volgroup00/logvol06 /u01 ext3 defaults
/dev/hde /media/cdrecorder auto pamconsole
/dev/sdb /media/floppy auto pamconsole


#cat /etc/modprobe.conf

alias eth0 bnx2
alias eth0 bnx2
alias scsi_hostadapter megaraid_sas
alias usb-controller ehci-hcd
alias usb-controller1 uhci-hcd


#cat /boot/grub/grub.conf

#boot =/dev/sda3
default=1
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,2)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES (2.6.9-55.0.9.EL)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-55.0.9.EL ro root=/dev/volgroup00/logvol00 linux ide2=0x1f0 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.9-55.0.9.EL.img
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES (2.6.9-55.0.9.ELsmp)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-55.0.9.ELsmp ro root=/dev/volgroup00/logvol00 linux ide2=0x1f0 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.9-55.0.9.ELsmp.img

...
...

#cat device.map
(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/sda

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've tried the following:

1. mkinitrd -v -f /boot/initrd-2.6.9-55.0.9.EL.img 2.6.9-55.0.9.EL
2. modified the device.map to point to /dev/sda3
3. changed the SCSI controller in Vmware to use BusLogic instead of LSI Logic. (didn't work because I'm running 64 bit.. gave me an error message)
4. grub-install --recheck /dev/sda
5. tried booting to differerent OS versions (i.e. 2.6.9-55.0.6, etc.). I tried all of the versions listed in the boot menu


None of these worked.

Hello,

Do you have any particular reason to use a version that old? Most likely the virtual hardware isn't recognized by that version of RHEL. Try a clean install from RHEL4.0 to see if it installs correctly (which I doubt). To be sure, try installing version 6 (the latest) of RHEL in your virtual machine and see if it works well.

Kind regards,

Eric

The application and database that are installed on the server need RHEL 4. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 runs successfully on Vmware, I have other VMs that run that same exact version.

Reload from scratch is a last resort option because it will take me a full week to reinstall the database, application and configure everything due to the complexity of the app.