Arch Linux

mac57

Member

From: St. Somewhere

Registered: 2006-01-06

Posts: 302

Website

Changed SCSI Card, Now Arch Won't Boot - Help!

I have been debugging a problem with my SCSI 2 GB Jaz drive and came to the conclusion that my Iomega Jaz Jet card (Adaptec 2930 based) was flakey. I replaced it with another SCSI adapter I had on hand, a Tekram DC-315U. Since I boot from IDE not SCSI, I didn't expect any real issues, other than the need to load a new module to get access to the SCSI.

Surprise! Arch won't boot! It gets part way through the boot process and then throws a kernel panic and stops.

Any suggestions on how to overcome this? I do have another Linux dual booted on this machine, so I can still access the Arch partition and make changes, if I know what to change! Perhaps there is a new module I need to add to /etc/rc.conf?

I am running Arch 2007-05 on a real legacy machine: dual Pentium Pro 200s with 128 MB of RAM. Arch has been running great on this machine until this happened!

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Cast off the Microsoft shackles Jan 2005

mitsoko

Banned

From: In the Coal Chamber

Registered: 2007-05-08

Posts: 143

Re: Changed SCSI Card, Now Arch Won't Boot - Help!

what is the reason for the kernel panicking?

you may also add break=y to your boot line .. and when it breaks you should be in a busybox session or something .. then you can `echo /dev/{h,s}d*` and that should list the correct device names

brain0

Developer

From: Aachen - Germany

Registered: 2005-01-03

Posts: 1,382

Re: Changed SCSI Card, Now Arch Won't Boot - Help!

Boot with the fallback initrd (kernel26-fallback.img), then regenerate your usual initrd. If you need help with the latter, post your mkinitcpio.conf (only the non-commented lines) here.

mac57

Member

From: St. Somewhere

Registered: 2006-01-06

Posts: 302

Website

Re: Changed SCSI Card, Now Arch Won't Boot - Help!

Thanks for the suggestions folks. It turns out that the problem was pretty obvious - solved it with inspiration - one of those sudden "aha!" moments. The new SCSI card doesn't have a BIOS, while the old one did. The kernel panic was being caused by inability to find the init device. I reasoned that what had once been "sdd8" might now be "sda8" since there we no BIOS visible SCSI devices anymore (have three Iomega SCSI devices on this machine!). Using the other Linux I have dual booted on this box (Zenwalk - don't go there - Arch is MILES better) I generated a new Lilo config with all sdd references changed to sda. I also made the equivalent changes to fstab.

Instant success. It came right up and ran like a champ.

Thanks again everyone - I thought I would let you know how this had turned out.

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Cast off the Microsoft shackles Jan 2005