New rig freezes on boot (info added 30 Jan 07)

[fopetesl]

Last week my mobo combo failed on boot up (no BIOS, no Beeps) so I replaced mobo,processor & memory.

Old system: ASUS A8N_SLi Deluxe, Athlon 3500+, 2GB GEIL DDR(1)

New system: ASUS M2V, Atlon 3800+, 1GB Kingston DDR2

 

Both systems with Radeon PCI Express X300, 250GB SATA.

 

Dual boot with XP and Mandriva 2007.

 

XP booted OK and after installing (new) drivers works fine, (that's how I can write this).

 

Mandriva will not load in any mode - the ouput from 'failsafe'

Loading sd_mod.ko module
Loading jbd.ko module
Loading ext3.ko module
Mounting /proc filesystem
Mounting sysfs
Creating device files
Mounting tempfs on /dev
Creating root device
Trying to resume from /dev/sda6
Unable to access resume device (/dev/sda6)
echo: cannot open /proc/suspend2/do-resume for write: 2
Mounting root filesystem /dev/root
mount: error 6 mounting ext3 flags default
well, retrying without option flags
mount: error 6 mounting ext3
well, retrying without any flag
mount: error 6 mounting ext3
Switching to new root
ERROR opening /dev/console!!!!: 2
unmounting old /proc
unmounting old /sys
Switchroot: mount failed: 22
Initrd finished
kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

Then the system freezes.

 

I ran 'rescue' from the install DVD which is no help except

# lsparts //.. returns nothing

# fdisk -l //.. returns nothing

# fdisk -l /dev/sda //.. returns nothing

#lsparts //.. returns nothing

 

If I try to mount all detected hardware:

sata_via IVT8273A installs OK

IDE/USB IVT82C586 fails with "Can't find via82Cxxx in archive"

 

If I try to mount I get "/mnt can't find root device".

 

I ran a partiton manager (from DOS?) and it sees all my partitions.

 

Where to now?

 

======= Added 30 January, 2007 ==========

 

It looks like we are in the dark here :unsure: - It seems I have a hardware issue.

I tried to run the 'patch' option from the DVD and it threw up "Found VIA VT8237A SATA 2 controller" with the query "Any other hardware?".

If I select "No"I get the response

An error occurred -
An error occurred - no valid devices were found on which to create new filesystems. Please check your hardware for the cause of this problem.

I noted that on the M2V mobo there is also a JMicron JMB363 SATA/PATA controller which I had previously discounted as a problem since I can read the DVD OK. If I select "Yes" to the above the JMB363 is not an option.

However it appears this could be a problem since:

a ) it is not clear just which SATA ports it accesses

-and-

b ) is not supported on kernel 2.6.17-x (it seems, however, that it is on 2.6.18 )

 

SO. How do I patch the kernel on a drive I cannot access.

 

How can I upgrade Mandriva 2007 with another Distro without trashing my programs and/or data, (/home is a separate partition, TG).

 

Does the name Yossarian mean anything here? :(

Edited January 30, 2007 by fopetesl

[ianw1974]

There are updated kernels for Mandriva 2007, namely 2.6.18 and 2.6.19. Unfortunately, neither of these are available for install, so means you'd have a hard job getting Mandriva installed.

 

However, you have Mandriva installed, because of your previous system install. Now there is something we can try, and maybe, just maybe it'll work.

 

I'd be tempted to get a 2.6.18 based distro or higher, so perhaps, download the Fedora Core 6 CD 1. This should be about 200MB or something like this. You only need this one, as we're attempting to repair Mandriva 2007.

 

Then when booted, if it recognises your controller, and the command:

 

fdisk -l

 

lists the partitions on your disk, then we're OK to go. However, you need to know EXACTLY what partition was what before on your previous system. For example, you have to know which one is swap, which one is / and which one is /home if you only have these partitions on the disk. Once you've determined this, we can move further forwards.

 

Assuming you know which partition is what, you can do this:

 

mkdir /mnt/mdv2007
mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/mdv2007

 

Mandriva has a tendency to put / as the hda5 or sda5 partition depending on IDE versus SATA disks. As you have sata, it should be /dev/sda5, but I'm not sure as I don't know how you partitioned your disk.

 

Once you've mounted this, you should do this:

 

chroot /mnt/mdv2007 /bin/bash
source /etc/profile

 

what this will do is hopefully give us Mandriva from a command prompt, and load it's variables, so we can try and get the system up. Now, presuming that your internet connection was eth0 beforehand, maybe we can bring this interface up:

 

ifup eth0

 

and then, check that DNS is working, as this will check internet access, so:

 

host linux.org

 

and if you get IP details back, then we should be fine. If not, you need to check your default route to see if it's running, so:

 

route -n

 

and it should have the router IP address or firewall depending on your internet connection (let's hope it's not USB attached ADSL modem).

 

So assuming, that you have this OK, then you can do something like this:

 

urpmi kernel-linus-latest

 

which will give you the 2.6.19.2 kernel. Then, after this has downloaded and installed:

 

exit
umount /dev/sda5
reboot | halt

 

replace reboot or halt depending on what you want to do, eg, restart the system or shut it down using halt.

 

I hope that helps, otherwise you'll have a hard job with Mandriva, and have to wait for the next version. If this is the case, download the rest of Fedora Core 6 and use this instead. It should be OK at least for the time being, and during install, it should prompt you about upgrading. Although the best is clean install, without formatting your data in /home - let's hope you have that separate from the rest of the partitions. Just don't format it, else you lose the data. / is OK to format providing your data is in /home.

 

However, try to get Mandy recovered first.

[fopetesl]

Thanks ianw1974. Now we're getting somewhere :D but not all works as hoped. I get through to chroot and source OK (note later) but but hit a stumbling block. When I

/sbin/ifup eth0
forcedeth device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization

and

/sbin/ifconfig
Warning cannot open /proc/net/dev (No such file or directory).  Limited output

What's odd is that /proc exists but not subdir dev.

eth0 certainly used to work before the catastrophe.

 

So it seems the only problem now is initialising eth0. Any suggestions here?

 

FYI .. Note about "source /etc/profile" : I preempted you and had already downloaded SIDUX CHAOS since it runs a later kernel. On this platform I get a response " bash: TMOUT: readonly variable"

 

Also I went to http://fs-driver.org and installed it on the XP partition. Really neat piece of software - I can read all my Mandrake partitions. Haven't tried copying yet . . . . ;)

[ianw1974]

You can ignore that readonly variable error, it's nothing to worry about.

 

OK, so now to your network prob. Do an lsmod and see it the forcedeth module is loaded. If not, then I would perhaps try to get the network up and running before we chroot into Mandriva.

 

So, when you've booted into rescue mode, then try doing an:

 

ifconfig -a

 

see what it says. Then, if eth0 is the device, do:

 

ifconfig eth0 ip_addr/subnet mask

 

here is a working example:

 

ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.2/24

 

so, let me explain some more. The IP Address is the first part, which is normal enough. The subnet mask, depends on how you set your network up. Most home networks are Class C with 255.255.255.0 so, this equates to 24.

 

255.255.255.0 = 24

255.255.0.0 = 16

255.0.0.0 = 8

 

thats why I didn't type the full mask in ifconfig, just putting a slash between the ip and the subnet number for 24 bit subnet mask. Then try chrooting again. Do an nslookup or do the host linux.org like I said before. It should be resolving, as once chrooted, it should be using the /etc/resolv.conf within Mandriva.

[fopetesl]

So this morning after some head banging I have this 1st result: neither of the two distros with 2.6.19 recognise that I have a LAN adapter on board. I plugged in a bog standard PCI NIC and can now set up an internet connection so:

mkdir /mnt/mdv2007
mount /dev/sda4 /mnt/mdv2007
mount -t proc none /mnt/mdv2007/proc
mount -o bind /dev /mnt/mdv2007/dev
chroot /mnt/mdv2007 /bin/bash
source /etc/profile

So far so good :D FC6 rescue mode has already initialised eth0 via DHCP from my router, viz

route -n
Destination   Gateway	  Genmask	 Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.1.0	0.0.0.0   255.255.255.0  U	  0	 0   0 eth0
 0.0.0.0	192.168.1.1	0.0.0.0	 UG	 0	 0   0 eth0

then I attempt to set up a host

/usr/bin/host linux.org
linux.org has address 198.182.196.8
;; Warning: Message parser reports malformed message packet
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

Final hurdle to overcome

 

(I also may have to work out why Mandy 2007 did see the on-board LAN ( and XP) but FC6 and SIDUX cannot )

[ianw1974]

Have a look at your /etc/resolv.conf before you chroot and after. Make sure they are identical.

[fopetesl]

Have a look at your /etc/resolv.conf before you chroot and after. Make sure they are identical.

/etc/reslov.conf after chroot-ing looked like this

search home

nameserver 192.168.1.1

So I took out the 1st three lines so it was identical to pre-chroot.

Same response. So I tried this

bash-3.1# /usr/bin/host 198.182.196.28
48.196.182.198.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer linux.org
bash-3.1# urpmi kernel-linus-latest
<14>Jan 31 14:54:47 urpmi: called with: kernel-linus-latest
no package named kernel-linus-latest
bash-3.1#

:huh:

 

I looked up "kernel-linus-latest" and there is a Mandriva Cooker 2.6.20 in

ftp://fr2.rpmfind.net/linux/MandrakeCooke...2007.1.i586.rpm

but not one in linux.org (tho' there is in mirror.linux.org.mt).

Is it my "host" designation at fault or the Message parser error?

[ianw1974]

The host command is just to test resolving of DNS, eg:

 

host linux.org

host mandriva.com

 

or whatever. It's not for downloading stuff. After chrooting, please post the output of this command:

 

urpmq --list-media

 

as it seems you don't have any urpmi sources, but if we cannot get DNS resolving, then you'll never get this fixed. If using DHCP in Fedora 6 in Rescue mode, then the /etc/resolv.conf should have an entry for a DNS Server.

 

Alternatively, find a machine that has internet access, and download the kernel-linus-2.6.19.2-2 from a Mandriva mirror manually. Then put it on a USB stick or something so you can get it installed on the Mandriva machine.

[fopetesl]

Two steps forward, one back.

I downloaded and put a kernel 2.6.20 rpm in /dev/sda4/tmp.

When I run urpmi on it and bypass check warnings the 'build' stops because it cannot find a valid boot file/directory.

 

My /grub directory is in its own /boot partition: /dev/sda7

 

So I did this

sh-3.1# mkdir /mnt/mdv2007
sh-3.1# mount /dev/sda4 /mnt/mdv2007
sh-3.1# mount -t proc none /mnt/mdv2007/proc
sh-3.1# mount -o bind /dev /mnt/mdv2007/dev
sh-3.1# mkdir /mnt/mdv2007boot
sh-3.1# mount /dev/sda7 /mnt/mdv2007boot
sh-3.1# mount -o bind /boot /mnt/mdv2007boot
mount: Mounting /boot on /mnt/mdv2007boot failed: No such file or directory
sh-3.1#

Well, of course it failed finding /mnt/mdv2007boot, the only directories in partition /boot are grub, etc.

So I have misunderstood mount -o bind :blush:

 

So how do I tell urpmi that my /boot directory is actually /mnt/mdv2007boot?

[ianw1974]

You mounted it to the wrong place that's why it's not worked!

 

You have / mounted to /mnt/mdv2007, so you should have mounted /dev/sda7 to /mnt/mdv2007/boot. From what you show above, you've mounted it somewhere else completely.

[fopetesl]

You mounted it to the wrong place that's why it's not worked!

 

You have / mounted to /mnt/mdv2007, so you should have mounted /dev/sda7 to /mnt/mdv2007/boot. From what you show above, you've mounted it somewhere else completely.

Yeah. I fixed that and and as you state it mounted OK. Then the (new) kernel wouldn't install

[ianw1974]

As I said, it was no guarantee to fix it. Your controller isn't supported for installation of Mandriva. The fact we had Mandriva already gave is a head start, but it wasn't a guarantee we could get it up and running.

 

What we're trying to do is hack around and get it working, unfortunately for you, it seems we cannot do that. I don't have a jmicron controller to even be able to test it and find a solution for you. For the time being you might have to use another distro, like Fedora Core 6 perhaps or wait until a newer version of Mandriva is released.

 

All of this unfortunately is out of my control. I've tried what I would do, but as I cannot see your system, I cannot suggest more, because I've not physically seen this problem to find a solution.

[fopetesl]

Found a possible solution:

http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.asp...p;enterthread=y

 

Seems VIA themselves have helped out here! B)

[ianw1974]

Cool, hope it works for you! :)