[SOLVED] Kernel Panic on first-time boot

arjay · 2009-10-04 16:16:06

Hi - as a first time user, I feel like I am climbing Everest wrapped in my beginner's guide. Good fun but hard work Unfortunately - never got much further than basecamp

I am trying to install archlinux-2009.08-core-i686. I read the guide and followed instructions using vc2, but must have made a silly mistake somewhere. On the first attempt at booting I got (written down and typed up):

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 one HDD partitioned as
sda1, ext3, / 20Gb
sda2, swap, /swap 2 Gb
sda3, ext3, /home 230

The relevant bit of menu.lst is:

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/e82ae6ee-2440-469a-8bfe-c47972f19d30 ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

# (1) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux Fallback
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/e82ae6ee-2440-469a-8bfe-c47972f19d30 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img

I modified fstab to show the uuid's:

# 
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system>        <dir>         <type>    <options>          <dump> <pass>
none                   /dev/pts      devpts    defaults            0      0
none                   /dev/shm      tmpfs     defaults            0      0

#/dev/cdrom             /media/cd   auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/dvd               /media/dvd  auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/fd0               /media/fl   auto    user,noauto             0      0

/dev/disk/by-uuid/e82ae6ee-2440-469a-8bfe-c47972f19d30 / ext3 defaults 0 1
/dev/disk/by-uuid/0af87279-ea68-4464-80ef-7a0bfacfed8d swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/disk/by-uuid/c3bcd0ef-899c-47df-bb17-f6eb5871b1ac /home ext3 defaults 0 1

When asked about where to install grub I followed the guide and chose /dev/sda (not sda1). I have looked at the hard disk and all the usual stuff is there and what seems to be the right directories. BTW I did not create a /boot partition as I am used to just using root, swap and home. Might this have made a difference?

I am reading up on kernel panics etc. In the meantime, could anyone point me to where I should start looking. I am a reasonably experienced linux user, but not expert by any means. This is my first effort with Archlinux.

TIA

RJ

Last edited by arjay (2009-10-06 18:11:56)

lilsirecho · 2009-10-04 16:25:15

Which partition is identified as /bootable?

arjay · 2009-10-04 17:32:33

Thanks for responding so quickly. Fdisk shows the first partition as bootable:

  Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        2432    19535008+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2            2433        2675     1951897+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3            2676       30401   222709095   83  Linux

lilsirecho · 2009-10-04 18:03:57

What happens in fallback?

arjay · 2009-10-04 18:08:53

Exactly the same result and messages, I'm afraid.

lilsirecho · 2009-10-04 21:19:18

Mebbe rootdelay=10?

GreenLED · 2009-10-04 21:33:03

Interesting, I'm getting the exact same issues with the install. I posted my situation in another thread. Think I will delete it and follow along on this one. Exact same situation though, the boot is "sda1" and it shows up as bootable. Frustrating.

arkham · 2009-10-04 21:42:54

Why don't you all try to use the device name (like /dev/sda1) instead of the UUID?

brando56894 · 2009-10-04 22:36:50

That might help, also have you changed any settings in the BIOS relating to sata/ide?

This seems like it might be a problem with the initrd either not loading the correct modules or just not loading at all. Try booting up the install cd (or a GUI live cd such as chakra since its based on arch, and will be easier to post the outputs of stuff as opposed to using a console) and chrooting into your install and then rebuilding the initrd with: sudo mkinitcpio -g /boot/kernel26.img

Also while youre in there could you post the output of lspci -k and your /etc/mkinitcpio.conf? Ive been messing around with slimming down my kernel and not using udev and I had a lot of problems with arch not booting because 'scsi' wasnt in the hooks array in mkinitcpio.conf, you might be missing something similar.

GreenLED · 2009-10-05 09:34:22

My reply here is of some importance to the "passer-by" so pay attention private. . A slight increase in my attention to the installation process revealed to my that the file-system was the cause of my panic from the kernel. Hopefully this is in step with the actual problem. I am installing Arch on an old 315 MHz Pentium II. The hard drive probably does not have the necessary chips needed to support ext3, which is the file-system that I originally opted for on the install. Therefore, a bit of trail and error is required here when you're installing Arch on an older system. Hopefully this IS the problem and not something different. Another important note follows. Upon farther investigation into my BIOS settings -- just a quick review of my IDE settings revealed that my IDE hard drive as well as my IDE cd-rom were using the same PIO / DMA channels. Back when I was a computer genius, I believe having two devices on the same channel will cause them to perform slower when they are both working tat the same time. Thus, I switched my HD and my CD-ROM to be on differing channels. This is not completely necessary, but for a perfectionist like me, it is very important. .

Last edited by GreenLED (2009-10-05 09:35:24)

arjay · 2009-10-05 12:25:01

Thanks to the many helpful respondents. Here are the results of trying your suggestions:

lilsirecho wrote:

Mebbe rootdelay=10?

Tried this, no change

arkham

The reason for using UUIDs was that this was the recommended method in the users guide. The issue apparently is the possibility that using partition ids might be thrown where - in some circumstances - it is possible for ids to be switched - e.g. sda becomes sdb etc. I have never seen this but thought I should follow the guide.

However, I have now tried replacing the UUID statements in both menu.lst and fstab with the partition ids. Made no difference I'm afraid.

brando

Followed your advice by chrooting into a mounted root partition and rebuilding initrd.

bash-4.0# sudo mkinitcpio -g /boot/kernel26.img
:: Begin build
:: Parsing hook [base]
:: Parsing hook [udev]
:: Parsing hook [autodetect]
find: `/sys/devices/': No such file or directory
:: Parsing hook [pata]
:: Parsing hook [scsi]
:: Parsing hook [sata]
:: Parsing hook [filesystems]
:: Generating image '/boot/kernel26.img'...SUCCESS
bash-4.0#

This made no difference on rebooting Arch - note the line where it says /sys/devices:.....

You also asked for the following:

bash-4.0# lspci -k                        
pcilib: Cannot open /proc/bus/pci         
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 02)                                                                  
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 2570                             
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P PCI to AGP Controller (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)                                                               
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 24d0                             
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)                                                               
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 24d0
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 24d0
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 24d0
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 24d0
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev c2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) IDE Controller(rev 02)
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 24d0
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 24d0
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 9761
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200] (rev a1)
        Subsystem: CardExpert Technology Device 0403
02:05.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 8139
bash-4.0#

Re the mkinitcpio.conf file, the only uncommented line is:

HOOKS="base udev autodetect pata scsi sata filesystems"

There are no entries for MODULES, BINARIES, or FILES.

By the way, while I was chrooted, I also tried a grub re-install but might have got that wrong. This is what I did (working from my poor memory about how to do it):

bash-4.0# sudo grub-install /dev/sda
/dev/sda: Not found or not a block device.
bash-4.0#

OK - I continue to monitor this thread but in the meantime I am going to try a complete re-install.

Could someone confirm that grub should normally be installed to /dev/sda not /sda/sda1?

arjay · 2009-10-05 17:43:58

UPDATE - well it gets worse. I reformatted the HDD and went for an "automated" install. I ran:

aif -p automatic -c /usr/share/aif/examples/generic-install-on-sda

The script got as far as partitioning, creating sda1 (as ext2, presumably for /boot) and sda2 (swap). It then hung on sda3 (the first ext4 partition). It threw a string of send_request I/0 errors for fd0, logical block 0, followed by Buffer I/O errors. I exited the install and checked the Seagate 250Gb HDD with their diagnostic suite. SMART was enabled and had not been triggered. Even the long test (2 hours) produced no faults. I was unable to find any badblocks.

I then used the same disk and installed Kubuntu 9.04 (yes I know, how sad is that ). The install went just fine. I removed the disk and substituted a spare (both disks are only a few months old). This time the install completed partitioning OK and ran through the first bunch of installs before crapping out with an endless loop of the same I/O errors at the install_bootloader stage.

At that point I gave up. Tomorrow, I will try the interactive install again, this time on another disk and see if that goes any better. Otherwise, and failing any further advice, I am afraid I will have to call it a day. Very sad as I really wanted to move to a more user-driven distro. Arch looked the perfect candidate........
RJ

arjay · 2009-10-06 19:31:09

OK - CRACKED THIS - JUST BEFORE I CRACKED

I have tried many things so not sure if what I think was the problem is correct.

Anyway - I tried another HDD - no change. I tried the Auto_Prepare partitioning process, no change.

So I started again with the manual/interactive setup. This time just three partitions - sda1 (ext3 root) sda2 (swap) sda3 (ext3 home). I avoided ext4 which was where 3 of the previous 5 attempts had hung.

I had read the beginners guide and the install guide very thoroughly. This can be an advantage but also a disadvantage. Here it looks as if it was my undoing. I paid particular attention to what the guides said but tended to accept the defaults where there was no commentary.

This time, when modifying the mkinitcpio.conf file I noticed the last section (COMPRESS) which requires one of the methods to be unchecked. I had inadvertently left all of them unchanged. This time I uncommented the gzip option and, lo and behold, this time it could find init and away we went.

Could someone with more experience definitively state whether or not a failure to uncomment the COMPRESS="gzip" statement would be enough to cause this Kernel Panic (see first post).

Anyway - thanks to all who helped me track this down. Perhaps it would be a good idea for the wiki/install guides to say something about the COMPRESS section of the mkinitcpio.conf file??

Right - now to get on and enjoy this distro

Arch Linux

#1 2009-10-04 16:16:06

[SOLVED] Kernel Panic on first-time boot

#2 2009-10-04 16:25:15

Re: [SOLVED] Kernel Panic on first-time boot

#3 2009-10-04 17:32:33

Re: [SOLVED] Kernel Panic on first-time boot

#4 2009-10-04 18:03:57

Re: [SOLVED] Kernel Panic on first-time boot

#5 2009-10-04 18:08:53

Re: [SOLVED] Kernel Panic on first-time boot

#6 2009-10-04 21:19:18

Re: [SOLVED] Kernel Panic on first-time boot

#7 2009-10-04 21:33:03

Re: [SOLVED] Kernel Panic on first-time boot

#8 2009-10-04 21:42:54

Re: [SOLVED] Kernel Panic on first-time boot

#9 2009-10-04 22:36:50

Re: [SOLVED] Kernel Panic on first-time boot

#10 2009-10-05 09:34:22

Re: [SOLVED] Kernel Panic on first-time boot

#11 2009-10-05 12:25:01

Re: [SOLVED] Kernel Panic on first-time boot

#12 2009-10-05 17:43:58

Re: [SOLVED] Kernel Panic on first-time boot

#13 2009-10-06 19:31:09

Re: [SOLVED] Kernel Panic on first-time boot

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