root filesystem could not be mounted read/write !!

scharkalvin

after just installing gentoo and rebooting off the hard disk for the
first time after building my 1st kernel and installing grub
I get the following message:

Root filesystem could not be mounted read/write

[!!]
Give root password for maintance

Where do I look for the problem to fix?
Is it something in my grub.conf file or /etc/fstab?

I've NEVER had this happen in several installations of Gentoo.....

mmbrothers · Apprentice Joined: 24 Dec 2005 Posts: 224 Location: Boston

Could you post your fstab?

scharkalvin · Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2005 7:39 pm Post subject:

here goes ...

/dev/hda1 /boot ext2 noauto,notail 1 2
/dev/hda3 / ext3 notail 0 1
/dev/hdb1 /home ext3 notail 0 1
/dev/hda2 none swap sw 0 0
proc /proc proc 0 0
shm /dev/shm tmpfs nodev,sosuid,noexec 0 0

I think notail is not compatible with ext2 and ext3, could that
be my problem?

mmbrothers · Apprentice Joined: 24 Dec 2005 Posts: 224 Location: Boston

notail is a reiserfs option, try to remove it and see if you still have the problem.

scharkalvin · Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2005 8:11 pm Post subject:

/dev/hda1 /boot ext2 noauto,notail 1 2
/dev/hda3 / ext3 notail 0 1
/dev/hdb1 /home ext3 notail 0 1
/dev/hda2 none swap sw 0 0

The above didn't work.

Below works. I changed notail to noatime, and renumbered the final
parameters to look like another system that boots ok. The above
options came from the handbook.... The notail was my problem
guess the handbook example was using reiserfs. (I prefer ext3)

/dev/hda1 /boot ext2 noauto,noatime 1 1
/dev/hda3 / ext3 noatime 0 0
/dev/hdb1 /home ext3 notail 0 2
/dev/hda2 none swap sw 0 0

Thanks for the clue.