gentoo only working in qemu, wont actually boot. [SOLVED]

dvn1129 · n00b Joined: 05 Sep 2009 Posts: 15

Ok, so where to begin? My gentoo install sort of boots. It begins loading, but then frezzes and says somethin like "kernel panic, VFS cant mount root filesystem." I have am positive i have my filesystem built into

the kernel, not as a module. I think grub loads my Kernel image just fine, but cant find my install or something. (im no expert on how the boot process works) Also interestingly, If i load my harddrive using qemu

inside of linux mint, i can select gentoo, and it will load just fine, except for this error. : The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device is valid and really it really

contains an ext2 filesystem,(and not swap or ufs or anything else),then the superblock is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock."

My gentoo install is on an ext3 filestystem, not ext, but it is located on /dev/sda4.

here is the gentoo part of my grub.cfg:

menuentry "Gentoo Linux 2.6.34 (on /dev/sda4)" {
insmod ext2
root=/dev/sda4
linux (hd0,4)/boot/kernel-2.6.34-gentoo-r1
}

any ideas? also, why would it work (sort of) under qemu, but not in the actual booting of it? (just curious about that one)

DONAHUE · Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 4:00 pm Post subject:

take a picture of the panic screen and post it on some photo site then post the url here.

dvn1129 · n00b Joined: 05 Sep 2009 Posts: 15

ok, here's the link. I tweaked the grub.cfg file in order to get the screen shot through qemu.. This is what boots up no matter what the .cfg file has in it, except when booting in qemu. :

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/3221/kernelpanic.png

all help will be greatly appreciated

DONAHUE · Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 8:03 pm Post subject:

First guess, it appears that the kernel is not configured with drivers for the hard drive adapters
boot the cd, run

dvn1129 · n00b Joined: 05 Sep 2009 Posts: 15

Well, Ive been doing this through chroot, and not the cd. heres the output of lspci inside the chroot environment:

00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SATA Controller (rev a2)

That one was the only one that had anything to do with sata.

DONAHUE · Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 8:41 pm Post subject:

reconfigure, recompile, recopy the kernel, if using a seperate /boot partition ensure it is mounted before the copy step.

dvn1129 · n00b Joined: 05 Sep 2009 Posts: 15

ok, I had the nvidia sata support as a module. hopefully this fixes it. its compiling right now, so ill let ya know.

dvn1129 · n00b Joined: 05 Sep 2009 Posts: 15

Ok Thank you!! it boots fine and all, the only problem is it still seems to thtink its on an ext2 partition? any gueses?

DONAHUE · Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:06 pm Post subject:

ext3 is ext2 plus journaling, however, does kernel have

dvn1129 · n00b Joined: 05 Sep 2009 Posts: 15

yes it does. thank you for all your help man

DONAHUE · Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:08 pm Post subject:

also check /etc/fstab for correct entries