Kernel Panic at boot

toastygoodness · 2006-08-07 05:05:57

Hi,

I fresh-installed Arch on a laptop with the Intel i852 chipset. Everything worked fine with the 2.6.16-ARCH kernel included on the 0.7.2 CD. However, after I 'pacman -Syu'd to Kernel 2.6.17 (and a bunch of numbers after that) and restarted the system, my kernel would not boot. It panicked attempting to kill init or something, after I read something like, "ERROR: Failed to parse block device /dev/hda3".

My Arch dual-boots with WinXP Pro and is installed on /dev/hda3. I have 2GB RAM so I didn't add a swap partition.

Menu.lst entry for Arch Linux shows:

title Arch Linux
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/hda3 ro vga=792
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

Also, I tried to resolve this twice by reinstalling the kernel from the Live CD and then Pacman -Syu again but it gives the same thing. What would be wrong with my setup?

phrakture · 2006-08-07 06:01:24

Interesting - what is the filesystem on hda3?

toastygoodness · 2006-08-07 18:17:32

The filesystem is ext3. I can mount it with the Live CD and also Chroot, so the problem lies with the kernel, right?

I chrooted and tried mkinitcpio as stated in the wiki to rebuild the initrd, but the same result happens.

Also, I went into cfdisk to look at my partitions, and they all had an asterisk next to them near the end. Here's my partition table:

/dev/hda1 NTFS [boot] *
/dev/hda2 VFAT *
/dev/hda3 EXT3 *

Would this mean my partitions are using LBA?

toastygoodness · 2006-08-09 15:50:03

Anyone?

fk · 2006-08-09 16:01:31

Hm have you set your Filesystem in /etc/mkinicpio.conv bevore creating?

toastygoodness · 2006-08-11 19:31:11

How would I set my filesystem? I have added the 'filesystems' hook but that was there before.

phrakture · 2006-08-11 20:15:54

Hmmm, can you add "break=y" to your kernel params, and when you're dropped to the prompt, try

echo /dev/*

and post the results?

toastygoodness · 2006-08-13 02:43:27

It broke at ramfs or something. echo shows /dev/null /dev/zero with /dev/ram* and /dev/tty* but no other devices (except for a few single ones i forgot what they were). There are no block devices like /dev/hda or /dev/cdrom, etc.

phrakture · 2006-08-13 06:20:49

can you try using kernel26-fallback.img in place of kernel26.img and let me know if it works. It appears that if your drive is not loaded, it may be an autodetection bug. Do you have odd hardware, by chance?

toastygoodness · 2006-08-13 15:02:52

I don't have any odd hardware, it is a Toshiba A15-S127 laptop and it worked fine with other distros (although I don't like to work with other distros). It has a i852 chipset, Mobile Celeron, ICH4 or 5 (i can't remember), and toshiba-acpi, toshiba-hotkeys, and toshiba-dvdrom/cdrw.

I have also tried the fallback image and it gives me the same error. Could it be because after I got the new kernel I also ran mkinitcpio again (I wanted to verify I had the images) and that screwed it up? I followed the instructions in the wiki page.

EDIT: I tried booting the fallback image a few times with a few different kernel parameters. When running in normal none-framebuffer mode, the kernel stops at ACPI. Could it be because my battery sensors on this laptop are dead? My laptop's battery sensors are defective and it is past the warranty. When booting with the framebuffer, it will just show a blank screen and there is no hard drive movement.

phrakture · 2006-08-13 17:49:38

toastygoodness wrote:

I tried booting the fallback image a few times with a few different kernel parameters. When running in normal none-framebuffer mode, the kernel stops at ACPI. Could it be because my battery sensors on this laptop are dead? My laptop's battery sensors are defective and it is past the warranty. When booting with the framebuffer, it will just show a blank screen and there is no hard drive movement.

Hmmm, try booting with "noacpi" or "acpi=off" (they should be equivalent) and see if it changes anything. Also, you might want to try shutting off acpi in the bios if it malfunctions.

toastygoodness · 2006-08-14 02:59:47

I booted with "acpi=off" and "noacpi", which gave me the framebuffer for the rescue kernel, but it still stops at the same error.

EDIT: A retry let me boot completely. I ran mkinitcpio again to regenerate a image, but the same error occurs in the normal kernel. The fallback boots fine, but only with "acpi=off".

toastygoodness · 2006-08-17 06:42:36

Well, it boots with the fallback image, so should I use this one, or use the rescue cd and get 2.6.18 when it comes out?

brain0 · 2006-08-17 11:04:38

toastygoodness wrote:

Well, it boots with the fallback image, so should I use this one, or use the rescue cd and get 2.6.18 when it comes out?

If it works with the fallback image, then you can use that for now. It won't add any bloat to the system, but will take slightly longer to boot.
We should still debug the problem. First, try to regenerate the normal kernel26.img from within the running arch system. If that still does not boot, then provide the following information:
1) the output of mkinitcpio -M
2) run mkinitcpio -s /tmp/filelist and post the contents of /tmp/filelist

toastygoodness · 2006-08-18 02:21:56

First, I would like to thank you for helping me solve this problem, brain0 and phrakture. I will not be able to access my rescue cd and arch partition because I will be on vacation. I will run walk through all the steps here again when I get back and then report back as soon as I can.

Arch Linux

#1 2006-08-07 05:05:57

Kernel Panic at boot

#2 2006-08-07 06:01:24

Re: Kernel Panic at boot

#3 2006-08-07 18:17:32

Re: Kernel Panic at boot

#4 2006-08-09 15:50:03

Re: Kernel Panic at boot

#5 2006-08-09 16:01:31

Re: Kernel Panic at boot

#6 2006-08-11 19:31:11

Re: Kernel Panic at boot

#7 2006-08-11 20:15:54

Re: Kernel Panic at boot

#8 2006-08-13 02:43:27

Re: Kernel Panic at boot

#9 2006-08-13 06:20:49

Re: Kernel Panic at boot

#10 2006-08-13 15:02:52

Re: Kernel Panic at boot

#11 2006-08-13 17:49:38

Re: Kernel Panic at boot

#12 2006-08-14 02:59:47

Re: Kernel Panic at boot

#13 2006-08-17 06:42:36

Re: Kernel Panic at boot

#14 2006-08-17 11:04:38

Re: Kernel Panic at boot

#15 2006-08-18 02:21:56

Re: Kernel Panic at boot

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