Arch Linux

foxcub

Member

From: California

Registered: 2006-06-10

Posts: 36

root filesystem problem (solved)

I can't figure out what's giving me the following problem. I'm installing Arch on a new machine, after I reboot I get:

kinit: Cannot open root device dev(0,0)
kinit: init not found!
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

Rebooting with the fallback image gives me:

kinit: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.
sh: root=/dev/sda3: No such file or directory
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

Booting with the Voodoo CD and passing arch=/dev/sda3 gives basically the same results.

The disk is SATA. / is on /dev/sda3, /boot is on /dev/sda1

What am I not loading? Or what do I need to change, and where do I search for the problem? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Last edited by foxcub (2007-05-11 23:04:54)

lilsirecho

Veteran

Registered: 2003-10-24

Posts: 5,000

Re: root filesystem problem (solved)

List your rc.conf and what bootloader you are using with the appropriate config files.

This will enable others to give you better support.

---

Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

foxcub

Member

From: California

Registered: 2006-06-10

Posts: 36

Re: root filesystem problem (solved)

I'm using grub. The options passed to the kernel are root=/dev/sda3 ro rootfstype=ext3

I will lookup rc.conf tomorrow, although does it really come into play? I thought this was more of a mkinitcpio.conf problem. In either case I'll post both tomorrow.

lilsirecho

Veteran

Registered: 2003-10-24

Posts: 5,000

Re: root filesystem problem (solved)

Probaqbly don't need rc.conf ...the forum has other problems similar to yours which involves the ID's for the system hdd's which are affected in the latest kernel.

---

Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

dmartins

Member

Registered: 2006-09-23

Posts: 360

Re: root filesystem problem (solved)

Do you have any IDE disks connected? If you do and you have 'pata' in your HOOKS in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf then chances are your IDE drives have become /dev/sdX and your SATA drives have moved to the next available letter for 'X' after the IDE drives. This is normal when using the new PATA subsystem of the kernel.

Last edited by dmartins (2007-05-08 06:25:06)

foxcub

Member

From: California

Registered: 2006-06-10

Posts: 36

Re: root filesystem problem (solved)

Relevant lines from my mkinitcpio.conf:

MODULES="ata_generic ata_piix ide_disk piix ext3"
BINARIES=""
FILES=""
HOOKS="base udev autodetect scsi sata raid filesystems"

Note that ide_disk and piix I threw into the MODULES just for good measure, it does roughly the same thing without them.

kernel26-fallback.conf:

MODULES="BusLogic piix ext3"
HOOKS="base udev ide pata scsi sata usbinput raid filesystems"

In rc.conf MODULES is set to tg3 and nothing else. Do I need to add anything there?

I don't think I have PATA in the kernel, and I don't think I have any IDE disks. However, if we suppose that that's the problem, what would be the fix; to change root=/dev/sda3 to root=/dev/sdb3 in the kernel parameters in grub?

Thanks for helping me with this.

foxcub

Member

From: California

Registered: 2006-06-10

Posts: 36

Re: root filesystem problem (solved)

I've compiled my own kernel (basically compiling in all the modules that I need (ata, ext3, etc)). The problem still remains, however now when I remove the initrd line from grub (well, really edit the menu item during boot), it dumps me into shell with root being the correct harddrive partition. The system is not very usable: I think even proc is not mounted, so even things like df and lsmod don't work (and ls /dev has 3 items under it).

I'm guessing all the necessary initialization and configs are not processed, but it seems like a start. Is there some way for me to make it process the configuration (load modules, etc)?

foxcub

Member

From: California

Registered: 2006-06-10

Posts: 36

Re: root filesystem problem (solved)

I found it. I forgot to install sysvinit, so /sbin/init was missing. Silly me.