Can't boot Slackware 11 - sda/hda confusion?
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From: Robert Glueck on 18 Sep 2006 13:34 I installed Slackware v.11 (-current from 9/11/06) on a Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop with Intel Core Duo processor and an internal SATA hard disk drive. I picked the sata.i kernel both for the installation and for running the installed system; the kernel version is 2.4.33.3. I skipped installing LILO since booting on this drive is already managed by LILO installed by Xandros 4. The Slackware installation proceeded without error, and the system files are all there on sda8; I can view them from Xandros. However, I can't boot this installation. I added the following stanza for Slackware to Xandros' lilo.conf: image=/disks/welcome_2/boot/vmlinuz-ide-2.4.33.3 label=Slackware_11_on_sda8 root=/dev/sda8 read-only When I try to boot Slackware from the Xandros LILO menu, the system quickly crashes with a kernel panic. The last three boot messages before the crash are: VFS: Cannot open root device "808" or 08:08 Please append a correct "root" boot option Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:08 I also tried the following stanza: image=/disks/welcome_2/boot/vmlinuz-ide-2.4.33.3 label=Slackware_11_on_sda8 vga=791 append="root=/dev/sda8 " This stanza is completely analogous to the LILO stanza for the Slackware derivative Zenwalk 3.0 that's also installed on the same drive (on sda6), and that stanza allows me to boot Zenwalk just fine. The Zenwalk kernel is their default sata kernel; the version is 2.6.17.11. But the Slackware install again crashes with a kernel panic with this second Slackware stanza. There is one thing that struck me as very odd during the installation: the Slackware installer consistently identified/labelled the partitions on the internal SATA drive as hdaX rather than sdaX, as would be correct. By contrast, the kernel ("sata" v.2.6.17.1) used by the Zenwalk installer (which is a slightly streamlined Slackware installer) identified/labelled the partitions correctly as sdaX. E.g. when inquiring which partition to choose for the / (root) partition and in the section used to construct /etc/fstab, the installer referred to all partitions on the SATA drive as hdaX, and the fstab generated by the installer looks as follows: /dev/hda7 swap swap defaults 0 0 /dev/hda8 / reiserfs defaults 1 1 /dev/hda5 /mnt/hda5 reiserfs defaults 1 2 /dev/hda6 /mnt/hda6 reiserfs defaults 1 2 /dev/hda2 /mnt/hda2 ntfs ro 1 0 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom auto noauto,owner,ro 0 0 /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner 0 0 devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 Also, among the boot messages are the lines: hda Hitachi ....... [that's the internal SATA drive] Partition check: hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 < hda5 hda6 hda7 hda8 > hda4 All of this looks wrong: there are no hdaX partitions (I'd entered the mount points as /mnt/hdaX, simply to be consistent with this labeling scheme). This laptop consistently identifies the internal SATA drive as sda, and when I modify the line "root=/dev/sda8" in lilo.conf to "root=/dev/hda8", I get the following error when I then run the command lilo: "Fatal: Illegal 'root=' specification: /dev/hda8". What's wrong and how can I fix it? Did I pick the wrong kernel, or does the 2.4.33 kernel have trouble with SATA drives? Robert
From: Douglas Mayne on 18 Sep 2006 15:00 On Mon, 18 Sep 2006 13:34:43 -0400, Robert Glueck wrote: > I installed Slackware v.11 (-current from 9/11/06) on a Dell > Inspiron 6400 laptop with Intel Core Duo processor and an > internal SATA hard disk drive. I picked the sata.i kernel > both for the installation and for running the installed > system; the kernel version is 2.4.33.3. <snip> > > I added the following stanza for Slackware to Xandros' > lilo.conf: > > image=/disks/welcome_2/boot/vmlinuz-ide-2.4.33.3 > label=Slackware_11_on_sda8 > root=/dev/sda8 > read-only That looks like the generic kernel to me, not the sata kernel you mentioned earlier. Replace with the correct kernel, or build an appropriate initrd. For 2.6.x kernels, I think the module you need is ata_piix. I don't know which module for the 2.4.x kernel, but the newer 2.6.x kernel worked better for me with similar hardware (Dell Latitude D610). <snip> Note: comments inline. -- Douglas Mayne
From: dfisek on 18 Sep 2006 15:06 Robert Glueck yazdi: .... > What's wrong and how can I fix it? Did I pick the wrong > kernel, or does the 2.4.33 kernel have trouble with SATA drives? There are two different sata modules used in 2.4.x series, one identifies the drives as hda and the other as sda. If you are reluctant to use 2.4.x kernel with Slackware, you may try installing grub, that way you wouldn't have the naming problem with the boot manager. Or you could try using 2.6.x kernel with Slackware, all you have to do is boot with huge26.s during installation, choose that kernel from cdrom for kernel installation and then install the related linux-modules package from extra after installation. - dfisek
From: Robert Glueck on 18 Sep 2006 17:34 Douglas Mayne wrote: > On Mon, 18 Sep 2006 13:34:43 -0400, Robert Glueck wrote: > >> I installed Slackware v.11 (-current from 9/11/06) on a Dell >> Inspiron 6400 laptop with Intel Core Duo processor and an >> internal SATA hard disk drive. I picked the sata.i kernel >> both for the installation and for running the installed >> system; the kernel version is 2.4.33.3. > <snip> >> I added the following stanza for Slackware to Xandros' >> lilo.conf: >> >> image=/disks/welcome_2/boot/vmlinuz-ide-2.4.33.3 >> label=Slackware_11_on_sda8 >> root=/dev/sda8 >> read-only > > That looks like the generic kernel to me, not the sata kernel you > mentioned earlier. Replace with the correct kernel, or build an > appropriate initrd. For 2.6.x kernels, I think the module you need is > ata_piix. I don't know which module for the 2.4.x kernel, but the newer > 2.6.x kernel worked better for me with similar hardware (Dell Latitude > D610). > <snip> > Note: comments inline. > Well, what can I say? :-) At the beginning of the installation I picked the "default" installation kernel which was called "sata.i". After all the packages were installed, I was asked to "Choose Linux Kernel", and here I picked the highlighted choice which was "/cdrom/kernels/sata.i/bzImage", assuming that this was the same kernel that I picked as the installation kernel. There is only one "sata" kernel in the /cdrom/kernels/ directory, i.e. "sata.i", and the file /cdrom/kernels/SATA-SUPPORT.TXT says that this kernel has SATA support built into it. After making the above choices, the vmlinuz-ide-2.4.33.3 kernel is what I found installed on my system. Obviously, this kernel is not working for me. Robert
From: Grant on 18 Sep 2006 17:45
On Mon, 18 Sep 2006 17:34:00 -0400, Robert Glueck <rglk(a)web.de> wrote: >There is only one "sata" kernel in the /cdrom/kernels/ >directory, i.e. "sata.i", and the file >/cdrom/kernels/SATA-SUPPORT.TXT says that this kernel has >SATA support built into it. $ grep SATA /boot/config-ide-2.4.33.3 # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE_SATA is not set CONFIG_SCSI_SATA=y CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_AHCI=y CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_SVW=y CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_NV=y CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_QSTOR=y CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_PROMISE=y CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_SX4=y CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_SIL=y CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_SIS=y CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_ULI=y CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_VIA=y CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_VITESSE=y slack-11: things have changed ;) Grant. -- http://bugsplatter.mine.nu/ |