Arch Linux

userlander

Member

Registered: 2008-08-23

Posts: 413

[SOLVED] More IDE Controller Woes

My computer stopped being able to boot from the IDE controller unless the motherboard IDE controller is disabled. With that disabled, though, I have no optical drives.

I had it working briefly, but (I think) after the last kernel update something got pathed wrong. Now I keep getting a kernel panic, and I can't figure out why it's not finding the root device or where init is.

The message says "unable to mount root fs on device dev (8,2)" and "kinit: init not found!"

(8,2) ?? where is that coming from? The device is /dev/sda2, and the other HD is /dev/sdb. It boots that way with the arch install CD, so how do I find out how it's designated now or where init is?

I tried grub> find /sbin/init, it said Error 15: File not found. I also tried booting to the install CD and reinstalling the kernel from there, but it didn't work.

Can anyone assist? After changing drive designations, bios settings, jumpers, flashing the card from raid to IDE, etc. I am completely stumped.

Here is the complete panic message, maybe someone will have a clue how to fix this.

Attempting to create root device '/dev/sda2'
/bin/mknod "/dev/root" b 8 2
/init: 1: cannot open /dev/root: No medium found 

Waiting for devices to settle...done.
:: Initrramfs Completed - control passing to kinit
IP-Config: no devices to configure
Waiting 0 s before mounting root device...
kinit: Unable to mount root fs on device dev(8,2)
kinit: init not found!
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

> Btw, I get the same problem with the Fallback kernel. Lol, can anyone help? I haven't been able to use my computer for 2 days.

Last edited by userlander (2009-01-30 18:26:59)

userlander

Member

Registered: 2008-08-23

Posts: 413

Re: [SOLVED] More IDE Controller Woes

I think I got it. With my old zip drive hooked up as slave on IDE1 it doesn't boot. Either there's some kind of driver loading first that's blocking the card from being recognized or some other problem having to do with how the drive is recognized. I don't even know why I keep that thing around, I never use it. I just have a bunch of old disks with fonts and some old art projects I've been too lazy to copy to DVDs, so I keep it hooked up.

I tried adding siimage (the module for the IDE card) to /etc/modprobe.conf, adding that file to mkinitcpio.conf, and rebuilding the image to see if it would pre-empt whatever was happening with the zip drive, but it didn't work. Maybe I was adding it to modprobe.conf wrong. But with my CD burner hooked up instead, it boots perfectly, and even recognizes the zip on the second IDE port on the card, so it's not even needed. cool!