[Solved] Cannot open root device "hda3" or unknown-block...

jayFrame · n00b Joined: 21 Jan 2009 Posts: 6 Location: Germany

Hi everyone.

I experienced a problem that seems to appear quite often recently. I already posted into another topic but someone suggested to open a new one. So here you go.

I just installed AMD64 version (with grub). After booting the first time I received the following message:

drescherjm · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 6:22 pm Post subject:

Did you try sda3 instead of hda. Its been a long time (more than a year) since I have used hdX with gentoo.
_________________
John

My gentoo overlay
Instructons for overlay

Strowi · l33t Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Posts: 656 Location: Bonn

as i wrote in the other thread you mentioned... did you try switching hda<->sda? also check if the kernel recognized your drive try looking at the scrolling kernel output.
which fstype ist your root-partition?

@drescherjim: it still is being used by ata_piix which my (ok, quite old) thinkpad x31 uses. I just recently discoverd that sata_piix does the same thing and creates sda devices. But after a mistake mixing up sda/sdb i accidentally formatted my boot instead of the usb-stick..;\ i think about reverting to the old one..
_________________
--
Linux & such ...
http://blog.hasnoname.de

jayFrame · n00b Joined: 21 Jan 2009 Posts: 6 Location: Germany

sudokode · n00b Joined: 23 Jan 2009 Posts: 7 Location: Delaware

I just had this problem, let me guess, you're using an IDE hdd. If so, you'll find in the kernel config under Device Drivers two misleading sections, "Serial ATA and Parallel ATA" and before that "ATA/something/something". The SATA/PATA gets enabled by default in the newer kernels. The ATA section does not. So you'll want to the enable that, go through, look for familiar chipsets/options, enable those, recompile that, copy it over, and try it out then.
_________________
tims-box ~ # uname -a
Linux tims-box 2.6.27-gentoo-r8 #2 SMP Thu Jan 22 06:47:53 EST 2009 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux

In a world without fences, who needs Gates?

jayFrame · n00b Joined: 21 Jan 2009 Posts: 6 Location: Germany

Hi again,
sorry, didn't manage to reply earlier.

As you said (yes, it's IDE), after enabling several additional options (I was quite desperate so I chose a few) *and* ACHI mode (in BIOS) it worked like a charm.
Btw. here is the part of the .config file (should work with all ICH10- / P43-Boards) - but, as I said, I don't know if you acutally need all of them. Anyway, it worked for me.