Odd Kernel Panic on clean CD install (Long Post)

MeesterExx · 2002-08-14 04:30:05

Hi all, any help on this one would be greatly appreciated! The error message and my system information is listed below. I just wanted to preface it by saying that while I have succesfully installed, configured, and used Slackware 8.0 & 8.1, Mandrake 8.0, redhat 7.1, and 7.2 I still consider myself a newbie, so please bear with me...

The Error Message on bootup:
read_superblock: can't find a resierfs filesystem on (dev 03:02, block 64, size1024)
read_superblock: can't find a resierfs filesystem on (dev 03:02, block 8, size1024)
Kernel panic: VFS : Unable to mount root fs on 03:02

My Hardware:
Shuttle AK35GT2R (Via KT333, Highpoint Raid)
AMD XP2100+ CPU
512MB PC2100 DDR
WD 15GB ATA100 7200 rpm on Primary Ide Master (not raid port)
Toshiba 32X IDE CD Rom on Secondary Master (not raid port)
Philips 3610 CDRW on Secondary Slave (not raid port)

My partitions:
HDA1 100MB ext2 "/boot"
HDA2 1000MB swap
HDA3 14000MB ext3 "/"

I have tried to install twice (with the stock 2.4.19 kernel off the CD). The first time I included all the base packages plus others (KDE, etc...) and got this message. The second time I installed I left out the reiserfs package in case this was causing problems. I also tried disabling the raid ports as I thought dev03:02 may have been referring to the third ide channel which would be the first raid channel.
I md5summed the iso before burning and I recieved no error messages during the install itself (based on VC5 output).
This one has me stumped as I am not using reiserfs at all.
As a side note, I succesfully installed/configured Slackware 8.1/X/KDE3 on this machine after my first failed attempt to install AL. Also, before installing Slack 8.1 the first time and then before installing AL the second time, I used the Slack 8.1 CD to remove all partitions from the drive with cfdisk followed by using the win98 cd to "fdisk /mbr" the mbr to remove lilo from it.

Again, ANY help as to what may be causing this would be greatly appreciated as I really like the concept behind AL. I was happy with Slackware (really stable) but it always bugged me that it was only i386 optimized. Then I saw the announcement on distrowatch.com about AL 0.3 and got really excited. This distro is EXACTLY what I was looking for: i686 optimized, not bloated, no goofy/buggy/proprietary GUI tools, etc...

Thanks in advance.
BTW, Thanks also for the new forum, this is exactly what a distro like AL needs! When I was running slack 8.0, their forums (before they got shut down) provided more help and in depth info than any place I had seen on the web. I am hoping the AL forum will prove such a valuable, or should I say invaluable, asset.

apeiro · 2002-08-14 07:08:57

Hmm, you're right, that is an odd error. The first two things I would check:

/etc/lilo.conf - does the 'root=' line point to the right root partition?
/etc/fstab - are the filesystem entries correct?

You could also see if the kernel is hooped by trying to boot with the install cd's kernel.
At the lilo boot line:

boot: cd root=/dev/discs/disc0/part3

replacing the disc0/part3 with your root partition. If you are unfamiliar with the devfs naming scheme, the conversion is pretty simple. /dev/hda1 would be /dev/discs/disc0/part1, /dev/hdb2 would be /dev/discs/disc1/part2. discs count up from zero and partitions count up from one, just to confuse everybody.

Arielext · 2002-08-14 15:34:52

had the same problem when I tried Slackware and switched back to Arch

don't know how I solved the problem, thought I remade partitions, with fdisk and ran the install of Arch again

MeesterExx · 2002-08-14 16:15:27

Thanks for the tips! I will try them tonight and post the results...

MeesterExx · 2002-08-15 04:59:16

Problem Solved. As you pointed out it was an error in lilo.conf. I forgot to change the root from the default /dev/discs/disc0/part2 to part3. I would have thought the setup program would pass this info to the lilo.conf via some sort of memory variable based on the mount points I setup. Next time I'll read a little more carefully

I caught the error right away thanks to your help and then spent the next couple of hours trying to correct it without a reinstall. Needless to say I was able to correct the error in lilo.conf by mounting part3 on a directory in /tmp. But then I couldn't get lilo to correctly write the file back to the MBR. The closest I got was by doing a "lilo -C /tmp/test/etc/lilo.conf -M /dev/discs/disc0/disc".(/tmp/test being the directory I mounted part3 to from a CD boot) This only resulted in giving a drive read error on boot.
Doing a chroot didn't work right because I had no devices listed in /dev on part3 (I guess because devfs creates the devices automatically on boot if they're not there, but since that drive had never booted there were no devices) so lilo gave me device not found errors when attemtping to run it from the chrooted shell.

Anyway, to make a long story longer, I finally gave up on the repair and did a clean install, making sure I corrected the lilo.conf this time.

BTW, the cd root code you listed to run at the boot prompt didn't work for me. It just returned an image not found error...

Anyway, Thanks again for your prompt help and accurate diagnosis! If I was less ignorant I'm sure I could have repaired the lilo problem instead of having had to reinstall.

One final thought, it is interesting how erroneously pointing the root to the swap partition like I did made the kernel think it was trying to mount a reiserfs partition. Any idea why?

I look forward to using AL and this forum!
Peace.

apeiro · 2002-08-15 17:23:05

MeesterExx wrote:

BTW, the cd root code you listed to run at the boot prompt didn't work for me. It just returned an image not found error...

Ack! My bad, that should've been arch root=/dev/discs/disc0/part3. 'cd' is the wrong image name.

MeesterExx wrote:

One final thought, it is interesting how erroneously pointing the root to the swap partition like I did made the kernel think it was trying to mount a reiserfs partition. Any idea why?

Very good question, and I have absolutely no idea. :?

MeesterExx · 2002-08-16 03:13:58

Cool. Thanks again for the info.

Very good question, and I have absolutely no idea.

Fair enough
BTW, how do I make the quote function say "apeiro wrote:" instead of just "Quote:" (like how you did on ur msg with quotes from me)? The FAQ doesn't really say much about the codes...

Peace.

Arielext · 2002-08-16 11:49:26

MeesterExx wrote:

One final thought, it is interesting how erroneously pointing the root to the swap partition like I did made the kernel think it was trying to mount a reiserfs partition. Any idea why?

let's make this even more interessing, After I had my 1day slackware adventure, I installed Arch again (0.2).

Got the very very same problem, with Reiser, without Reiser
same panic, same partition !!

Kernel panic: VFS : Unable to mount root fs on 03:02

and "hdc" is my cdrom player

So I guess that there is a problem when the installer overwrites an "older" Linux version / distribution.

MeesterExx wrote:

BTW, how do I make the quote function say "apeiro wrote:" instead of just "Quote:" (like how you did on ur msg with quotes from me)? The FAQ doesn't really say much about the codes...

Add ="username" behind the open quote (within the braches of course).
or hit the quote button and delete everything you don't want to quote

apeiro · 2002-08-16 18:25:19

Arielext wrote:

So I guess that there is a problem when the installer overwrites an "older" Linux version / distribution.

Strange.... Did you have any problems re-installing the bootloader after the Arch install? Did have an unorthodox bootloader setup with your previous distro? If one distro's bootloader was on the MBR and the other wasn't, I could see a problem like this popping up.

MeesterExx · 2002-08-17 04:34:08

hmm...I thought the problem was just from the error in lilo conf. Are you sure you didn't make my mistake? The problem went away when I corrected the lilo.conf on reinstall.....

Peace.

mordantly · 2002-09-25 00:23:48

i can second that panic that accompanied the other kernel errors in a diff topic.. i played it safe and ditched the system and stole all the drive platters fur a diff project.

sarah31 · 2002-09-25 01:36:49

i believe that as soon as you point lilo or grub to a swap or a /boot partition the kernel with automatically think reiserfs. When I was playing with getting grub installed no matter how hard i tried i could not get back into my original install of arch as it just kept giving me reiserfs errors, even though i stay very far away from reiserfs. so i came to the conclusion as soon as the kernel is "looking" at some partition other than / it automatically thinks it is seeking reiserfs as one used to have to have a /boot partition in order to use reiserfs.

elanthis · 2002-09-26 01:33:29

Is that the default LILO setup points to /dev/discs/disc0/part2 which, on most setups, ends up being the Swap partition. It needs to be set to the real root (which is /dev/discs/desc0/part3 on the auto-partition option).

Arch Linux needs either to at least change the default to match it's auto-setup, or perhaps use a mechanism to auto-generate a base LILO (i.e., take a lilo.conf.in, and fill in some values based on the partitions configured earlier)

apeiro · 2002-09-26 07:24:07

Already in the works... http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … light=lilo

Arch Linux

#1 2002-08-14 04:30:05

Odd Kernel Panic on clean CD install (Long Post)

#2 2002-08-14 07:08:57

Re: Odd Kernel Panic on clean CD install (Long Post)

#3 2002-08-14 15:34:52

Re: Odd Kernel Panic on clean CD install (Long Post)

#4 2002-08-14 16:15:27

Re: Odd Kernel Panic on clean CD install (Long Post)

#5 2002-08-15 04:59:16

Re: Odd Kernel Panic on clean CD install (Long Post)

#6 2002-08-15 17:23:05

Re: Odd Kernel Panic on clean CD install (Long Post)

#7 2002-08-16 03:13:58

Re: Odd Kernel Panic on clean CD install (Long Post)

#8 2002-08-16 11:49:26

Re: Odd Kernel Panic on clean CD install (Long Post)

#9 2002-08-16 18:25:19

Re: Odd Kernel Panic on clean CD install (Long Post)

#10 2002-08-17 04:34:08

Re: Odd Kernel Panic on clean CD install (Long Post)

#11 2002-09-25 00:23:48

Re: Odd Kernel Panic on clean CD install (Long Post)

#12 2002-09-25 01:36:49

Re: Odd Kernel Panic on clean CD install (Long Post)

#13 2002-09-26 01:33:29

Re: Odd Kernel Panic on clean CD install (Long Post)

#14 2002-09-26 07:24:07

Re: Odd Kernel Panic on clean CD install (Long Post)

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