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Old 08-18-2004, 10:06 AM   #1
cragwolf
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kernel upgrade fails, VFS error


I tried to upgrade my kernel from v2.4.26 to v2.6.8 but came across this error when I rebooted:

Code:
VFS: cannot open root device "301" or unknown-block(3,1)
Please append a correct "root = " boot option
kernel panic: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unkown-block(3,1)
I have added support for my filesystem (reiserfs), I believe I have properly added support for my hard drive (SATA), and I have the correct "root = " entry in my lilo.conf file, but it still doesn't work. I suppose I could look at the old .config file and compare it to the new .config file side by side, line by line, but that would be tedious and I would like to avoid that for now.

So does anyone have any idea of what might be causing my kernel panic?
 
Old 08-18-2004, 10:36 AM   #2
kilgoretrout
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I ran into this too. Please post your fstab and identify the lines that refer to your sata drive. Here's what I found with kernel 2.6.7 and above and sata. In the earlier 2.6 kernels(2.6.3) the sata hard drives were reported as /dev/hdx(actually hdex and hdfx with the regular ide channels being hda, hdb, hdc and hdd) but in kernel 2.6.7 and 2.6.8 my sata drives are reported as /dev/sdax and /dev/sdbx.
Of course if you have your linux partitions on the sata drive and switch to the newer kernel fstab will be all wrong because of the change in the sata drive device file and you get a kernel panic.
My particular example using lilo and slack10:

I had slack 10 installed on one root partition on hde8 on my sata drive, hde. Got the identical error message you did when trying the 2.6.7 kernel which comes on the slack install cds. Lilo was configured for root=/dev/hde8. I had seen the drive designation change in another distro install using kernel 2.6.8 from hde8 to sda8 so I thought the 2.6.7 kernel might be doing the same thing. Using a bootable cd called kanontix which also uses a late 2.6.x kernel I saw the slack root partition was designated as sda8. I edited the slack fstab for my slack root and swap partitions and commented everything else out. Rebooted and when the lilo screen came up hit the Esc key which took me to the lilo boot prompt at which I typed:

slack10 root=/dev/sda8

and it booted up!!! Note "slack10" is the label for my slackware 10 entry in lilo. You should substitute the label name that you use. The available label names are printed out on the lines above the lilo boot prompt.
 
Old 08-18-2004, 11:43 AM   #3
cragwolf
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Well, that's interesting. My current fstab (at least the part that deals with the SATA drive) looks like this:

Code:
/dev/hda2        swap             swap        defaults         0   0
/dev/hda1        /                reiserfs    defaults         1   1
 
Old 08-18-2004, 11:57 AM   #4
kilgoretrout
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Try editing your fstab lines to sda1 and sda2. Then reboot and hit the Esc key when you see the lilo selection screen and type:

<slack label> root=/dev/sda2

See if it boots. If it does, you can edit lilo.conf to change your root partition to /dev/sda2 and rerun lilo to write the changes to the mbr.

Edit: The above is my best guess as to how your sata drive shifted under the 2.6.7 kernel. If you want to know for sure, download kanontix and boot of the cd and see how kanontix designates the partitions on your sata drive. I'm fairly certain that you've run into the same problem that I did re shifting device file names under the 2.6.7 kernel. As to how it all played out on your system, I'm just guessing. I have an intel mb which uses intel's ICH5 sata controller.

Last edited by kilgoretrout; 08-18-2004 at 12:20 PM.
 
Old 08-18-2004, 11:24 PM   #5
cragwolf
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Thanks, but that didn't work. Seems that I'm stuck with the old kernel. I'll search for SATA and kernel v2.6.8 here on the forum, and see if anyone else has had any similar problems.
 
Old 08-19-2004, 02:16 AM   #6
cragwolf
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Well, no joy. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the v2.6.8 kernel does not have proper support for SATA. Oh well, the main reason I did this upgrade was to 1) get support for my 2GB of RAM, and, 2) learn something about upgrading kernels. I used the knowledge I had gained from this attempted upgrade to recompile my v2.4.26 kernel to support my RAM amount. It worked. The only thing I needed to do after the recompile was remove the alsa packages, and then install them again (from the Slackware CDs), then I ran alsaconf, and it detected my sound, and everything now works as it should. My RAM is now properly detected. It's just a shame that the v2.6.8 kernel doesn't seem to work with my SATA drives (again, I could be wrong about that, maybe there is some tweak you need to do).
 
Old 08-19-2004, 02:17 AM   #7
cragwolf
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By the way, I will download kanotix and see what it reports my sata drives as (I'm not going to give up this easily!)
 
  


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