My system hangs on boot with the following issue: VFS: Cannot open root device "sda8" or unknown-block(0,0) Please append a correct root=" boot option Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0) This seems to be a kernel issue with the Maxtor SATA/150 the only drive in the system is on. Kernel version is 2.6.16-gentoo-r6 (non-genkernel) This is a multi-boot system with Windows XP. Here is my fstab: /dev/sda6 /boot ext2 noauto,noatime 1 2 /dev/sda8 / ext3 noatime 0 1 /dev/sda7 none swap sw 0 0 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 shm /dev/shm tmpfs nodev,nosuid,noexec 0 0 Here is what fdisk says: Disk /dev/sda: 100.2 GB, 100256292864 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12188 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 7 51200 6 FAT16 /dev/sda2 8 12187 97835850 f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/sda5 8 921 7341673+ 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sda6 922 926 40131 83 Linux /dev/sda7 927 989 506016 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda8 990 1861 7004308+ 83 Linux These are the kernel options I compiled in to support the controller: File Systems: <*> Second extended fs support <*> Ext3 journalling file system support Device Drivers: SCSI device support ---> SCSI low-level drivers ---> <*> Serial ATA (SATA) support <*> Promise SATA TX2/TX4 support <*> Silizon Image SATA support Here is what lspci says about the controller: 0000:02:00.0 Unknown mass storage controller: Promise Technology, Inc. PDC20375 (SATA150 TX2plus) (rev 02) Subsystem: Promise Technology, Inc. PDC20375 (SATA150 TX2plus) Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 96, IRQ 21 I/O ports at b800 I/O ports at b400 [size=16] I/O ports at b000 [size=128] Memory at dd000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K] Memory at dc800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128K] Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2 LSPCI also says this, don't know if it's related: 0000:02:04.0 RAID bus controller: Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3112 [SATALink/SATARaid] Serial ATA Controller (rev 02) Subsystem: Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3112 SATARaid Controller Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 21 I/O ports at a800 [size=dfe00000] I/O ports at a400 [size=4] I/O ports at a000 [size=8] I/O ports at 9800 [size=4] I/O ports at 9400 [size=16] Memory at db000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512] Expansion ROM at 00080000 [disabled] Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2 Last but not least, here's is my grub.conf: default 0 timeout 45 title=Gentoo 2.6 - no videofb root (hd0,5) kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.16-gentoo-r6 root=/dev/sda8
post the kernel output from boot my guess is your kernel is configured incorrectly
(In reply to comment #1) > post the kernel output from boot > my guess is your kernel is configured incorrectly Hi, you'll have to run down for me how to do that, beyond what I already posted.
Try disabling support for your 2nd SATA controller (whichever one the hard disk is *not* on) Also mount /boot and post the output of: ls -l /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage ls -l /usr/src/linux/.config ls -l /boot/bzImage-2.6.16-gentoo-r6 And attach your kernel .config if possible.
"Kernel version is 2.6.16-gentoo-r6 (non-genkernel)" Removing genkernel@ from CC.
(In reply to comment #3) > Try disabling support for your 2nd SATA controller (whichever one the hard disk > is *not* on) > Also mount /boot and post the output of: > ls -l /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage > ls -l /usr/src/linux/.config > ls -l /boot/bzImage-2.6.16-gentoo-r6 > And attach your kernel .config if possible. My apologies, this tripped me off to the fact I hadn't copied the updated bzImage file to the /boot/kernel-2.6.16-gentoo-r6 After I copied the image the system boots just fine. Thank you all, I will post my ridiculous blunder to one of the forums.
.