kernel panic woes

mikkime23 · Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2005 10:34 am Post subject: kernel panic woes

hey guys, i am back again. can anyone tell me what this error message at boot means?

n3mo · Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2005 12:17 pm Post subject:

It seems that you passed the wrong root= option to grub, try to post your grub.conf and be sure that you compile as built-in all the option needed at boot, like the filesystem.
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moocha · Watchman Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 5722

wrong block device specified for the /etc/fstab line corresponding to your root file system (usually forgot to replace the installation default /dev/ROOT by /dev/hda1 or whichever)
wrong file system type (usually forgot to replace the installation default xfs with reiserfs or ext3)
heavily corrupted root file system (superblock gone the way of the dodo),
being silly and compiling the file system driver for the root file system type (e.g. reiserfs.ko for reiserfs) as a module instead of into the kernel.
same, but for the driver module for the hard drive controller (or flashstick or whichever media support you have)
some other weird and obscure kind of PEBKAC

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mikkime23 · Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2005 9:58 pm Post subject:

n3mo and moocha, thanks for your reply.

N3MO: i have lilo instaed of grub, and here is its setup:

moocha · Watchman Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 5722

I was referring to compiling, for example, the driver for your IDE chipset as a module - which would cause the kernel to need that module already loaded in order to be able to access the hard drive and load the module that drives the IDE chipset (vicious circle).
The other point was some sort of weird user-caused mess-up. There are countless possibilities - for example using a SATA drive and forgetting to enable SCSI support (SATA runs via the SCSI driver infrastructure), using a RAID array for the root file system without usijng an initrd, etc etc.
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Military Commissions Act of 2006: http://tinyurl.com/jrcto

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- attributed to Benjamin Franklin

mikkime23 · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 7:41 am Post subject:

i have an ATA hdd.
i have checked everything and still no luck!

This may be important. I get an error when i /sbin/lilo! it says that the /dev directory doesnt match the DEVFS. I have no idea what this means or how to fix it.

moocha · Watchman Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 5722

Hmm... Are you using devfs or udev for /dev management? If you're using devfs, you have to compile in "/dev file system support". If you're using udev, you might get away with having that compiled in, but it's best to run a pure udev system and not compile that in.
Also, what is the exact output of

cokey · Advocate Joined: 23 Apr 2004 Posts: 3355

it might help if you post us you fstab and grub.conf. "unable to mount root on fs on unknown block" is normally a sign that you have left it as /dev/BOOT or have put HD1 instead of HD0 etc in grub.conf etc
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mikkime23 · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 9:23 am Post subject:

before i do that, how do i run a pure udev system?

mikkime23 · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 10:08 am Post subject:

ok, i did that and this was the output.

moocha · Watchman Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 5722

There you go. The kernel doesn't even see the primary master ATA drive (hda). It only sees hdb, which is the primary slave and seems to be a CD-ROM since it has no subdevices for the partitions (hda1, hda2, etc etc).
Check the drive's jumpers.
_________________
Military Commissions Act of 2006: http://tinyurl.com/jrcto

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- attributed to Benjamin Franklin

mikkime23 · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 10:36 am Post subject:

[EDIT] My last post, i only did this command

moocha · Watchman Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 5722

Ah, so then /dev/hdb isn't a CD/DVD-ROM device but is your actual hard drive. Why is it not the primary master? Why primary slave? Any specific reason for that? You'll of course have to use /dev/hdb1 instead of /dev/hda1 then, etc etc, all over /etc/fstab. Or you can leave /dev/hda1 etc etc alone and jumper your drive to primary master. Or of it's jumpered to cable select (usually the factory default) and you have an 80-wire IDE cable (any post-2000 new cable is an 80-wire cable) make sure you follow the proper procedure when hooking up the drive: The blue cable connector goes into the motherboard, the black connector goes into the device that will become the master, and the gray connector into the one that should become the slave. That arrangement is important, it matters, unlike the old cables that went anywhere in any combination. If you only hooked up one device to the cable, make sure it's the master.
_________________
Military Commissions Act of 2006: http://tinyurl.com/jrcto

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- attributed to Benjamin Franklin

mikkime23 · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 11:20 am Post subject:

everything you said was exactly what i did. I am currently booting my slave from the motherboard as the primary hardrive and going from lilo to my hda hdd. not sure if that helps at all!

mikkime23 · Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2005 2:01 am Post subject:

hey moocha, can you just give me a little guidence on where i should be going with this, i has nothing in the 2004.2 handbook. I didnt do emerge --sync because it would always screw up on me. Please help a deperate n00b.

mikkime23 · Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 3:37 am Post subject:

bump

would anybody be able to help me with this little dilemma.

Thanx

cokey · Advocate Joined: 23 Apr 2004 Posts: 3355

give us your fstab and grub and tell us your partition layout
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mikkime23 · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2005 12:12 am Post subject:

i have lilo instead of grub so, i have it setup the way the handbook tells me to.

moocha · Watchman Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 5722

mikkime23 · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2005 2:44 am Post subject:

oops, sorry about that, i copied and pasted from a text document that i had. It is changed from XFS to reiserfs.

moocha · Watchman Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 5722

Ok, this does it. This many inaccuracies are a bit too much to swallow. This is not the first post where you ask for help yet either refuse to follow advice, give incorrect info when asked, or react badly to advice you don't like.
I'll simply ignore bull "help requests" like this from you from now on - my time is better spent on helping people that actually need help, as opposed to trolling.
Have a nice day.
_________________
Military Commissions Act of 2006: http://tinyurl.com/jrcto

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- attributed to Benjamin Franklin

mikkime23 · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2005 4:19 am Post subject:

look moocha, i am trying to get help. i am very very sorry that i put the wrong info up there. i am still very much a n00b and need assistance. your advice has been quite helpful, i have learnt a lot of info. i just need to know how to get past kernel panic, and you seem very knowledgeable and obviously can help me. i have followed all of your instructions, in this post and others. My posts are not BULL by the way, they are real life situations.

also, i like all advice, i just dont like people being smart and having a go at me. if there was anyway gentoo could install like windows, damn it, i would use it, but seeing as though there isnt, i rely on forums. my life is stressed to the max and i only want a little help. that may be the reason why some info is inaccurate. sorry for any inconvenience!!!!!!!

moocha · Watchman Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 5722

A. There is no way you would be in a situation like this if you would carefully follow the handbook step by step. I told you this in another thread and you reacted like a spoiled brat. I will tell you again: There Is No Way You Get An "unable to mount root file system" Type Of Error If You Follow The Handbook. Period. No Exceptions. The conclusion is that you obviously didn't have the patience to read the manual properly and expect support for your own lazyness. That's not a bad thing per se and I don't like to refer people to the manual. I normally help them, but as I'm not yet a full-blown mindreader I need some basic pieces of info, which brings me to
B.

mikkime23 · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2005 5:00 am Post subject:

you can get fucked and suck my dick. you are the lazy fucker. so fuck YOU!!!!

I cannot be expected to print out 100 pages of a fucking handbook!!! and the simple one is so vague its no wonder people write in these forums you cock head!!!

moocha · Watchman Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 5722

Thank you for proving my point (referring to wasting my time trying to help you).
_________________
Military Commissions Act of 2006: http://tinyurl.com/jrcto

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- attributed to Benjamin Franklin