kernel panic

-Nw- neX · 09-16-2004, 11:04 AM

first off, aplogies if this is the wrong place. admins, please move if you feel this is not appropriate.

just installed gentoo. everything went fine. bootloader is working [mostly - no display] and the kernel boots. but each boot gives me the following error.

Code:

Kernel Panic: VFS: unable to mount root fs on 01:00

the filesystems are all ext3. but i cant figure out if i need to pass a boot option from grub.conf, or if this is the ext3 kernel module missing from the kernel. im not having any hardware support problems, the live cd detected all the nessasary hardware without issue.

any pointers would be appreciated. i dont want to have to resintall [for the third time] if i can avioid it.

i can post any further info that ive got that may be nessasary.

masand · 09-16-2004, 11:10 AM

hi there

post ur '/etc/grub.conf' and
output of
fdisk -l

regards

-Nw- neX · 09-16-2004, 12:58 PM

Code:

livecd root # fdisk -l /dev/hda
 
Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40007761920 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4864 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
 
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1         637     5116671    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2             638        4863    33945345    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5             638        1912    10241406    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda6            1913        2005      746991   82  Linux swap
/dev/hda7            2006        2017       96358+  83  Linux
/dev/hda8            2018        3934    15398271   83  Linux
/dev/hda9            3935        4863     7462161   83  Linux

Code:

livecd root # cat /mnt/gentoo/etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
# $Header: /home/cvsroot/gentoo-src/rc-scripts/etc/fstab,v 1.14 2003/10/13 20:03:38 azarah Exp $
#
# noatime turns off atimes for increased performance (atimes normally aren't
# needed; notail increases performance of ReiserFS (at the expense of storage
# efficiency).  It's safe to drop the noatime options if you want and to
# switch between notail and tail freely.
 
# <fs>                  <mountpoint>    <type>          <opts>                  <dump/pass>
 
# NOTE: If your BOOT partition is ReiserFS, add the notail option to opts.
/dev/hda7               /boot           ext3            noauto,noatime          1 1
/dev/hda8               /               ext3            noatime                 0 0
/dev/hda6               none            swap            sw                      0 0
/dev/had9               /home           ext3            defaults,user           1 1
/dev/cdroms/cdrom0      /mnt/cdrom      iso9660         noauto,ro,user          0 0
 
# NOTE: The next line is critical for boot!
none                    /proc           proc            defaults                0 0
 
# glibc 2.2 and above expects tmpfs to be mounted at /dev/shm for
# POSIX shared memory (shm_open, shm_unlink).
# (tmpfs is a dynamically expandable/shrinkable ramdisk, and will
#  use almost no memory if not populated with files)
# Adding the following line to /etc/fstab should take care of this:
 
none                    /dev/shm        tmpfs           defaults                0 0
 
# USB filesystem.
none                    /proc/bus/usb   usbfs           defaults                0 0

Code:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
livecd root # lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by    Not tainted
b44                    12524   1
serial                 48676   0  (autoclean)
ds                      6516   1
i82365                 36368   1
pcmcia_core            38336   0  [ds i82365]
sbp2                   15284   0  (unused)
ohci1394               21968   0  (unused)
usb-storage            60800   0  (unused)
hid                    19652   0  (unused)
usb-ohci               17064   0  (unused)
ehci-hcd               15852   0  (unused)
usbcore                53676   1  [usb-storage hid usb-ohci ehci-hcd]

Code:

livecd root # cat /mnt/gentoo/boot/grub/grub.conf
#
# Sample boot menu configuration file
#
 
# Boot automatically after 30 secs.
timeout 10
 
# By default, boot the first entry.
 default 0
 
# Fallback to the second entry.
fallback 1
 
# spash image
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
 
# boot Gentoo
title=Gentoo Linux 2.4.26-r6
root (hd0,6)
kernel /kernel-2.4.26-gentoo-r6 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc real_root=/dev/hda8 vga=788
 
# boot Windows
title=Windows 2000 SP4
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

EDIT: totally the wrong fstab first time round. forgot to remount the volume first.

masand · 09-16-2004, 01:39 PM

hi there

what i can find is
# boot Gentoo
title=Gentoo Linux 2.4.26-r6
root (hd0,6)
kernel /kernel-2.4.26-gentoo-r6 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc real_root=/dev/hda8 vga=788

here u have root in
hd0,6
i.e. hda7
while u have root i.e.(/) in hda8 in fstab
so try chnaging that entry grub.con
to hd0,7

regards

-Nw- neX · 09-16-2004, 05:52 PM

i tried your suggestion. still getting the same error.

also added...

Code:

ramdisk=8192

didnt seem to make a difference.

heres the last couple of lines from the image boot...

Code:

sh-2021: reiserfs_read_super: can not find reiserfs on ramdisk(1,0)
Kernel Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 01:00

masand · 09-17-2004, 05:46 AM

hi

what i think is that u need to check out that u have ext3 support built in (not in modules) in ur kernel

regards

-Nw- neX · 09-17-2004, 10:07 AM

thats what i was thinking as well. there was no module loded for the filesystem. at some point im going to have to reinstall and do a custom build of the kernel. i had previously used 'genkernel all' to build all the kernel code so i could get the install done faster.

i threw FC2 back on for the time being until i can figure this one out.

masand · 09-17-2004, 10:15 AM

hi there

why don't u use the config file from ur FC2 ,to comile ur kernel here
also have u upgraded ur modutils and other packages???

ans since u were using 2.4 kernel previously so u need to upgrade ur modutils package

get that from

www.kernel.org

regards

-Nw- neX · 09-17-2004, 10:18 AM

thats a good idea! the one hurdle that might occour is that gentoo 2004.2 is using 2.4.26 kernel while FC2 uses 2.6.xx. might be a good guideline to work with anyways tho.

what files should i back up/take a look at?

masand · 09-17-2004, 11:04 AM

hi

there get the modutlis and module-init tools

from here

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/

just choose the latest one

regards

Elekrep · 09-17-2004, 04:16 PM

I'm having the same problem.
I've tried installing gentoo twice now with the same error. "kernel panic: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(3,3)

I've searched the net and some say that that the new 2.6 kernel has this bug some times. That the new kernel wouldn't be able to read root partition in some cases.

From page http://www.linuxforum.com/forums/ind...ic=71998&st=0I found a suggestion to correct this error. Suggestion was to replace the line in grub.conf "root=/dev/hda3" with the line "root=0301" .

However... This didn't work for me so I'm open to new suggestions

And about the gentoo livecd 2004.2. It can be booted with 2.6 kernel with the command "smp"

masand · 09-17-2004, 04:24 PM

hi there

as i mentioned above
try upgrading ur above mentioned packages .i too faced initially the same problem due to older packages

regards

jschiwal · 09-17-2004, 04:29 PM

I noticed your /etc/fstab file says 'had9' instead of 'hda9'. Also, please check that you don't have hda9 and hda8 turned around.
I'm just basing this on the relative sizes of the two. Normally /home is set up bigger than the root partition.

Elekrep · 09-18-2004, 02:49 AM

I updated modutils and mod-init , but still the same old problem.
I have never had the same problem with mandrake and redhat/fedora core2. And I haven't changed any hardware.

I don't get it.. I did everything exactly like the gentoo handbook said to do. Even with the partitions in my 2nd try. Could it be the pentium3 optimized stage3 I'm using ? Would be a shame as that was 1 of the main reasons I wanted to try gentoo. The install process goes from success to success, no errors in any stage. Even kernel compilation was a breeze. I actually had fun compiling kernel =) ( maybe I should of noticed something was wrong at that point ).

I'm having a feeling that genkernel or even 2.4 kernel would work, but that would in my mind ruin the idea of the optimized system I'm aiming to get. As gentoo has been said to be the fastest distro.

-Nw- neX · 09-18-2004, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jschiwal
I noticed your /etc/fstab file says 'had9' instead of 'hda9'. Also, please check that you don't have hda9 and hda8 turned around.
I'm just basing this on the relative sizes of the two. Normally /home is set up bigger than the root partition.

lol. thanks!

and the /home dir was set to 7gb. i intentionally made it the last partition. there was data to be preserved on that drive from a previous install.