Mobo fried

silmaril8n · 09-19-2005, 04:19 PM

I have a server with Slack10 on it go down on me yesterday. I have a feeling that it was the mobo in it that died.

I threw the the HD into another PC with different hardware and when it boots I get the typical LILO screen. When I go into my Linux image it loads for about 1 screen and then says:

Quote:

VFS: Cannot open root device on "301" or 03:01
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:01

I'm hoping that this has something to do with the Kernel not having the required modules loaded for the hardware in this other system. Is there an easy way to rebuild this Kernel without losing the drive?

gbonvehi · 09-19-2005, 04:36 PM

It's not a problem of the kernel, but lilo, it's trying to read the root partition, and it seems it has changed.
Just update lilo to reflect the current location of your root partition and also update /etc/fstab.

By the way, you could specify the root partition on boot by putting in lilo's prompt: linux root=/dev/hdX

comprookie2000 · 09-19-2005, 04:38 PM

You can boot up a live cd (I use gentoo) then chroot to the hd and recompile the kernel. That is if you have
the kernel source in /usr/src/linux

silmaril8n · 09-19-2005, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by gbonvehi
It's not a problem of the kernel, but lilo, it's trying to read the root partition, and it seems it has changed.
Just update lilo to reflect the current location of your root partition and also update /etc/fstab.

By the way, you could specify the root partition on boot by putting in lilo's prompt: linux root=/dev/hdX

Sorry I should have mentioned that I've tried specifying the root= and it's coming up with:

Quote:

No such image [TAB] shows a list

In response to the other... I figured that may I could recompile the Kernel but although I've used various distros of Linux over the past few years I'm not very experienced in issues like this. I've always used stock Kernels from the install and done very little tweaking. Can you direct me to a site that might explain it in more detail?

Thanks all!

comprookie2000 · 09-19-2005, 05:17 PM

If you are using the stock kernel that should be fine.I would boot up knoppix so you can ask and post some info. To see if /etc/fstab is right.
fdisk -l and see it that is the same as /etc/fstab etc. If you are using the stock slackware kernel it should work unless you have something unusual.

silmaril8n · 09-19-2005, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by gbonvehi
It's not a problem of the kernel, but lilo, it's trying to read the root partition, and it seems it has changed.
Just update lilo to reflect the current location of your root partition and also update /etc/fstab.

By the way, you could specify the root partition on boot by putting in lilo's prompt: linux root=/dev/hdX

Update: I tried the command above again and I did get it to work (I didn't put "linux" in front).

It says that it still can't mount the reiserfs drive though.

gbonvehi · 09-19-2005, 05:27 PM

Were you using a initrd image to load reiserfs module? If you were, specify it on the prompt too with initrd=

The easier way to recover your system is to boot from a CD like others suggested (you can use Slackware CD 1), mount your harddisk, chroot to it. Then edit /etc/lilo.conf and /etc/fstab to reflect your drive change and finally, run lilo.

silmaril8n · 09-19-2005, 07:07 PM

Nailed it!

Thanks for the suggestions all!

I was able to boot up off the Slackware CD and run liloconfig after loading the image from the CD.

Now I have to get the network cards working again but that's a whole other thread (most likely a search on here will fix me right up).

Thanks again for the super help...!

Ben