Kernel 2.6 panic after upgrade...

samp · 2008-02-24 17:01:29

I am a newbie to the Linux world..

firstly i installed arch linux with a Core distro . after the system is correctly installed, it works fine as a pure console.
when i decide to upgrade the system and install x windows
i did the following

pacman -Sy
pacman -S xorg
pacman -S gnome
...

however after i reboot the system, the kernel is halted with a panic and every just can't went on.

it says something like:

List of all partitions:
No filesystem could mount root, tried:
Kernel Panic - not Syncing: VFS : Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

I have only one IDE harddriver one the machine, and the boot loader is GRUB
i never touched the config of GRUB before, but it seems the only boot option is as below:
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/hda2 ro
initrd /initrd26.img

i don't know why root option is set to root=/dev/hda2, because i remember the disk partition is set hda1 as the boot partition, and the file system is ext3.
However when i changed the root option to root=/dev/hda1 , it still does not work.
the fdisk -l out of the harddisk is as follow(pardon me any typo, i just hand copied all these info):

Disk Drive: /dev/hda

...

Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size[MB)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hda1 Boot Primary Linux ext3 ??????.??
hda2 Primary Linux ext3 ???????.??
hda3 Primary Linux ???????.??
hda5 Logical Linux ext3 ????????.??
hda6 Logical Linux ????????.??

It really get on my nuts and i searched the whole internet trying to find an answer, but no solution at all.

can you help me a bit?

thanks very much in advance.

raeven · 2008-02-24 20:30:04

sounds like you installed from one of the older isos.
i think all those hda* are supposed to be sda*
but first correct the ramdisk, it's supposed to be kernel26.img not initrd26.img
you can edit it by pressing `e' at the grub boot prompt then `e' to edit the line you're interested in
after you've done correcting the initrd line, press `b' to boot, NOT `ESC'. you press `ESC' to go back thus reverting all your changes.

if that fails due to an error similar to not being able to find the device or root, etc.
reboot and do the same as above, but this time append `1' to the end of the kernel line. this will drop you into maintenance mode providing you
enter the correct root password. from here you can edit /etc/fstab and change all hda* to sda*; you can also manually mount the devices from here

samp · 2008-02-25 01:17:41

hi, raeven, thank you for your response!

Yes, what i am using before is definetely an old ISO, because the pacman can't even make an correct request, it request the package file without append a i686 between filename and pkg.tar.gz.

I have replaced hda* with sda* ,but it's with no luck. it then goes into ramfs command line though.

Attempting to create root device '/Dev/sdaq'
ERROR: Failed to parse block device name for '/Dev/sdaq'
unknown
ERROR: root fs cannot be detected. Try using the rootfstype= Kernel parameter.
Waiting for devices to settle...done.

Root device '/dev/sda1' doesn't exist, attempting to create it
ERROR: Failed to parse block device name for '/dev/sda1'
ERROR: Unable to create/detect root device '/dev/sda1'
...

If the device '/dev/sda1' gets created while you are there, try adding 'rootdelay=8' or higher to the kernel command-line
ramfs$

I added an "rootdelay=8" but it's still no luck.
so it seems replacing hda* with sda* does not work, and i think when using IDE driver, it's correct to using hda*

however, if i changed the initrd in GRUB, replace initrd to initrd /kernel26.img. this time the kernel still panic, but the error message is different.

kinit: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly
kinit: init not found!
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

so that's what all i have after did some change on GRUB .

could you please make a more detailed analysis on my case, since i am really have limited knowledge on this system.

Thank you very much.

tigrmesh · 2008-02-25 02:10:38

It sound like you need this wiki page: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Kernel_Panics. It seems that you didn't upgrade your system. Once you're back in, first sync your system (pacman -Sy), then upgrade pacman (pacman -Su pacman), then upgrade everything (pacman -Su). That should also upgrade your kernel and rebuild your kernel image.

samp · 2008-02-25 02:15:14

hi, tigrmesh, thank you.

but i have already upgraded pacman (pacman -S pacman) before i commit pacman -Sy

Anyway, i will try the steps listed on the Kernel Panic WiKi tonight when i get back home ( i am @ GMT+8 time zone so now i am working at my office), and post out the result.

any more suggestion??

Last edited by samp (2008-02-25 02:22:42)

tigrmesh · 2008-02-25 02:50:02

samp wrote:

any more suggestion??

Nothing for now .

raeven · 2008-02-25 10:01:29

hmm, try booting the kernel26-fallback.img instead

samp · 2008-02-25 13:06:42

@tigrmesh
I have pacman -U kernel-path.pkg.tar.gz follow the way Kernel Panic WiKi told us, but the problem remain the same..

@raeven
I tried to boot the fallback image, it still does not work

It seems this is a GRUB issue, since the Menu.list seemed being changed after upgrading the system.

I don't think the config is right because i use hda1 as the boot partition as you may see in my previous post.
But i am not aware of the uderlying mechanism, perhaps i need to append some extra kernel command-line option i think.

Can anybody help me on this ?????

raeven · 2008-02-25 19:51:44

if the root is different just correct it lol

samp · 2008-02-26 16:00:32

hi guys
i have solved this problem by boot with install CD, and mount => chroot to the hard disk, and then run grub-install --recheck /dev/hda2 , and the grub-install failed and ask me to generate a mtab, after doing that, i rerunned grub-install again, and finally the system was boot up successfully

Romashka · 2008-02-27 10:04:22

please add [solved] to the topic then

Arch Linux

#1 2008-02-24 17:01:29

Kernel 2.6 panic after upgrade...

#2 2008-02-24 20:30:04

Re: Kernel 2.6 panic after upgrade...

#3 2008-02-25 01:17:41

Re: Kernel 2.6 panic after upgrade...

#4 2008-02-25 02:10:38

Re: Kernel 2.6 panic after upgrade...

#5 2008-02-25 02:15:14

Re: Kernel 2.6 panic after upgrade...

#6 2008-02-25 02:50:02

Re: Kernel 2.6 panic after upgrade...

#7 2008-02-25 10:01:29

Re: Kernel 2.6 panic after upgrade...

#8 2008-02-25 13:06:42

Re: Kernel 2.6 panic after upgrade...

#9 2008-02-25 19:51:44

Re: Kernel 2.6 panic after upgrade...

#10 2008-02-26 16:00:32

Re: Kernel 2.6 panic after upgrade...

#11 2008-02-27 10:04:22

Re: Kernel 2.6 panic after upgrade...

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