Arch Linux

irmkb

Member

Registered: 2007-01-19

Posts: 3

Kernel panic on boot since updating arch

Hello there.

I have been using arch for about two years now, and today I decided to run 'pacman -Syu' again for the first time in a few months. Since I did this I can no longer get arch to boot normally. I've searched around the forum and found some posts of people with similar problems, but still could not solve mine with the solutions provided in these threads.

Some things that may be relevant:

I have an AMD system with IDE disks.

The error I get on boot:

:: Running Hook [filesystems]
:: Loading root filesystem module...-e
Attempting to create root device '/dev/hda3'
ERROR: Failed to parse block device name for '/dev/hda3'
unknown
ERROR: root fs cannot be detected. Try using the rootfstype= kernel parameter.
:: Initramfs Completed - control passing to kinit
IP-Config: no devices to configure
kinit: Cannot open root device dev(0,0)
kinit: init not found!
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

When using the fallback kernel I get the same error.

My menu.lst (I have a seperate boot partition):

title Arch Linux [/boot/vmlinuz26]
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/hda3 ro devfs=nomount disablemodules=ata_piix
initrd /kernel26.img

My mkinitcpio.conf:

MODULES="ide_disk ext2 ext3"
BINARIES=""
FILES=""
HOOKS="base udev autodetect ide filesystems"

I Hope someone can help me with this.

bmalewski

Member

From: Cracow, Poland

Registered: 2006-12-19

Posts: 11

Re: Kernel panic on boot since updating arch

I had the same problem/
Try to add 'earlymodules=piix' to your commandline instead of disablemodules=ata_piix. It should be enough. It worked for me.

irmkb

Member

Registered: 2007-01-19

Posts: 3

Re: Kernel panic on boot since updating arch

Hey bmalewski,

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately adding 'earlymodules=piix' didn't solve my problem. I also thought that piix was only for Intel systems? I'm using an AMD processor.

CavalierBob

Member

From: San Francisco Bay Area

Registered: 2006-07-20

Posts: 110

Re: Kernel panic on boot since updating arch

See if this might help get you going in the right direction irmkb:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fix … _subsystem

Your problem sure sounds to me like the device names have shifted, but I reserve the right to be utterly incorrect. 

If your drives are seen as SD*, I don't know if you would need HOOKS for SCSI and/or SATA.

Also, are you positive you need the MODULES you are loading in mkinitcpio.conf? I just use  HOOKS="base udev autodetect ide scsi sata filesystems" and nothing in MODULES. Even though I do not have any SCCI or SATA devices on this system, I did not think using  these HOOKS hurts anything. System boots fine. NOTE: I am on an old Intel-based system.

HTH,

Bob

irmkb

Member

Registered: 2007-01-19

Posts: 3

Re: Kernel panic on boot since updating arch

Hello CavalierBob,

Thanks for your help.

I tried the link you mentioned and found something pretty strange: there are neither /dev/sd* nor /dev/hd* devices. I have no idea why this is so.

The reason I added those modules in mkinitcpio.conf is advice I found in other threads that helped people with similar problems. It is quite possible that I don't actually need them, but it doesn't seem to hurt either.

So I guess the question is why there aren't any hd or sd devices. Any ideas?

Lastebil

Member

From: Suomi

Registered: 2007-01-16

Posts: 35

Re: Kernel panic on boot since updating arch

I had a very similar problem - basically, I have a VIA chipset and the initcpio was not being built with anything to support it.

I had to tell the mkinitcpio to include the via82cxx module, and then, upon boot, it was able to see the drives.

I also used a suggestion elsewhere on this board to put kernelwait=15 in my kernel statement (in grub) - though I use kernelwait=5 now.  That gives the devices a few seconds to 'settle' after initially coming up, whereupon the kernel is able to find them.  Without it, occasionally my system won't boot, as the hardware isn't ready yet.

You can tell from the install disk what is in the initcpo by doing something like:

cat /boot/kernel26.img | gzip -d | cpio -it | less

(you may have to prefix gzip or cpio with /mnt/usr/bin/ - in my case the boot cd I was using did not have cpio in my path.  It's installed as part of the base install, UNLESS you remove it (and you'd know if you had.))

Someone else suggested moving it to another box and using mc to view the contents, but that is more difficult than really needed when the commands above will give you the listing straight from the install disk.  But if you're unfamiliar with using pipes or the command above looks scary, that is another option.

Anyway, after seeing what's in your initial cpio, you should see if that indeed contains all the modules you'd need to boot properly. If it doesn't, you'll need to add them, using the mkinitcpio bits - there are some good documents on this elsewhere (arch wiki, I believe, is where I found them myself.)

Lastebil

Member

From: Suomi

Registered: 2007-01-16

Posts: 35

Re: Kernel panic on boot since updating arch

darn it. While helping a friend out with his install, I realized it wasn't the 'kernelwait' parameter...

It's 'rootdelay' ...

See the following forum post which is where I learned of this.
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=28669