2005LE64 Fails to mount root

[Guest Rambus]

1. I am using MDV 2005LE x86-64.

2. My machine: MSI-RS480 / Athlon64 3200+ / 1GB RAM / 200GB HDD Maxtor PATA / Video: Radeon Xpress

3. Not using SATA drives. SATA is disabled on BIOS but I tried installation with SATA enabled too

 

Current wireless card hangs installation so I need to install using <i>linux noapic</i>

 

Installation goes ok.

 

After reboot PC hangs.

 

Reset and use failsafe to see error msgs. The relevant message I found is:

 

error 6 mounting ext3

 

or

 

error 6 mounting reiserfs

 

or

 

error 6 mounting put your filesystem of preference here

 

it depends on which FS i used to format / partition (I tried with many filesystems).

 

After that I'll get the message saying I need to pass a initrd parameter, but the error obviously is that since root partition is not being mounted, kernel can't find /boot folder with initrd.

 

All modules are being loaded (i see the ext3.ko, reiser.ko being loaded before), it is a fresh new installation, dual-boot with XP Pro,

 

Using grub didn't solve the problem either, so it seems to be a problem with partition mounting.

 

Any ideas?

 

 

Note 1: I've read of someone with a similar problem that found that a driver was being tried to be loaded early in the boot process but failed ... however I don't know how to check for that as messages scroll so fast that I'm unable to check. It is obvious that nothing gets logged in /var/log as "/ " is never mounted, in case anyone is thinking of using the rescue mode of MDV to read the log. Is there any other way to read the output?

Edited June 13, 2005 by Rambus

[devries]

Try booting with linux noapic :). Hit f1 or esc at the lilo splash and type: linux noapic (and unplug all usb peripherals, just to be sure)

[Guest Rambus]

Try booting with linux noapic :). Hit f1 or esc at the lilo splash and type: linux noapic (and unplug all usb peripherals, just to be sure)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Nop, it doesn't work. Nice Try

[ianw1974]

Is there an option in the BIOS for Plug and Play OS? If it's set to OS, can you change it to the other option (disabled I think it is), so then it doesn't get in the way of Linux detecting hardware correctly.

 

See if it'll boot again after this? If not, you may need to reinstall so it does detect correctly the second time around, although still not sure if this would be the resolution or not. But worth a shot anyway.

[Guest Rambus]

My BIOS is set by default to "Non P'n'P OS" . Tried using P'n'P OS but no luck either.

[pmpatrick]

The usual boot parameter advice is:

 

linux noapic nolapic acpi=off

 

and if that doesn't work you can through a "nodma" on top of that.

[Guest Rambus]

No luck either.

 

I have found references in ggl to other ppl suffering with similar problems due SATA_IL driver not initializing properly (even when disabled the controller in BIOS) and problems with drive enumeration not being the same from installation than from booting from HDD.

 

I wonder if one of those 1-in-a-million bugs

Edited June 16, 2005 by Rambus

[pmpatrick]

If it's a drive enumeration problem, try booting up with a knoppix cd and see if the drive is detected and how it's labeled. Then check the mandrake fstab and liloconf and see if things jive with the knoppix drive labelling. If they don't, you can edit the files and rerun lilo in a chroot environment and possibly fix things so you can boot. Or if you know how the root partition should be labelled, you can can reboot and hit the Esc key as soon as you see the lilo selection screen which will take you to a boot prompt at which you can do:

 

linux root=/dev/hdxx

 

where "xx" corresponds to your root partition.

[Guest Rambus]

I have tried diverse combinations () for /dev/hdxx, but no luck. Some Live CD's and the Mandrake installation can boot and recognize my root partition as /dev/hda7 (strangely enough ext2FS guesses it as hd4) ... hda7 is exactly the same boot partition defined in lilo.conf .

 

No luck so far trying to boot directly from HDD.