cptaylor Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 (edited) I recently pulled my hard drive from an old system and put it into a newer system as the master. Grub comes up ok and windoze boots ok but when I try to boot to Linux I get a kernel panic. I have tried normal booting, 2 older kernels, failsafe. I get the same result in any case. I have attached the screen output that I can see while booting (the rest scrolls by too fast). After the kernel panic the machine locks up with the caplock and scroll lock lights flashing. I suspect the problem may be related to the drive designations. The drives are both IDE. The 'new' machine, a Dell Precision360, supports SATA but the controller is turned off in the bios. I have tried reinstalling 2008.0 to the primary hard drive which it designates as hda. I got the same behavior described above. I also booted One 2008.1RC1. Under 2008.1 the hard drives show up as sda and sdb and they mount fine. I tried installing 2008.1 to sdb but got a similar lockup upon booting. I have also tried interrupting grub to change the devices from hda to sda and vice-versa. Still no luck. Another thing I suspected was the change in the cpu. The old cpu was an Athlon 700 and the new one is an Intel 2.4. However, reinstalling 2008.0 should have solved any issues there and the clean install of 2008.1 wouldn't be affected. I have looked through the log files but didn't find anything that pointed me to a problem. One other oddity: One2008.1 only recognizes 896MB of ram even though the system has 1280MB. Not sure if that is at all related. Any advice on what to look for would be much appreciated. Boot_Msgs.txt Edited March 8, 2008 by cptaylor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 The memory problem is due to a kernel being used that is set for 1GB, but actually shows as less than this. This is solved using a kernel supporting up to 4GB so don't worry about this now. In terms of booting, I'd like to see what is configured in /boot/grub/grub.conf or /boot/grub/menu.lst - usually one or the other is a symlink to the latter, sometimes grub.conf is a symlink to menu.lst or vice versa. Either way, need to see what it's looking to boot. Also be nice to see what partitioning has been configured on the disk as well, so if you can boot Mandriva One, give me a listing of: fdisk -l and that's an L in lowercase to list the partitions. Usually have to do this with root privileges. Oh, and also post the contents of /etc/fstab as well, then I can see it matching what fdisk tells me to decide why it won't boot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cptaylor Posted March 8, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 Well, I've made some progress on the 2008.1 installation on hdb. This is the installation I'd rather get working anyways. I reinstalled and manually changed all references in menu.lst and fstab from sdb to hdb. I get further along in the boot process but e2fsck comes back with an error in checking /dev/sdb1. It then drops me to a "rescue system" prompt. Mount tells me that /dev/sdb1 is mounted as /. However, there is no /dev/sdb1. Here are the relevant files: menu.lst timeout 5 color black/cyan yellow/cyan gfxmenu (hd1,0)/boot/gfxmenu default 0 title linux kernel (hd1,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=/dev/hdb1 resume=/dev/hdb5 splash=silent mem=1280M vga=788 initrd (hd1,0)/boot/initrd.img title linux-nonfb kernel (hd1,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=/dev/hdb1 resume=/dev/hdb5 mem=1280M initrd (hd1,0)/boot/initrd.img title failsafe kernel (hd1,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=/dev/hdb1 failsafe initrd (hd1,0)/boot/initrd.img title windows root (hd0,0) makeactive chainloader +1 title Mandriva Linux release 2008.0 (Official) root (hd0,4) configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst fstab /dev/sdb1 / ext3 relatime 1 1 /dev/sdb6 /home ext3 relatime 1 2 none /proc proc defaults 0 0 #/dev/sda6 swap swap defaults 0 0 /dev/hdb5 swap swap defaults 0 0 I also attached the dmesg log file. Here are the results of fdisk -l having booted from One 2008.1. Booting from the hard drive all of the sd's show as hd's. Disk /dev/sda: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9964 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x27d627d5 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 7295 58597056 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sda2 7296 7948 5245222+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA) /dev/sda3 7949 9964 16193520 5 Extended /dev/sda5 7949 8712 6136798+ 83 Linux /dev/sda6 8713 8775 506016 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda7 8776 9964 9550611 83 Linux Disk /dev/sdb: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0xdd94dd94 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 * 1 2302 18490783+ 83 Linux /dev/sdb2 2303 4865 20587297+ 5 Extended /dev/sdb5 2303 2555 2032191 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sdb6 2556 4865 18555043+ 83 Linux dmesg.txt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveinSpain Posted March 21, 2008 Report Share Posted March 21, 2008 I have just been hit with a similar problem. I had 2007.1 Spring (free) running on my old PIII 866Mhz with 256Mb and a 30Gb IDE HDD, and it has been really well behaved until yesterday. There was a power outage (yes, I keep promising myself a UPS) whilst I was configuring a new printer in cups and now it won't boot. I have Safe Mode, non-fb, the original install kernel and the latest kernel from Updates available from the Grub menu, but the only one that gets anywhere is Safe Mode, which takes me to a Single User bash shell but won't boot into X. The boot messages say can´t find ext3 filesystem on dev HDA1, tries without flags and again in read-only mode, then gives kernel panic, trying to kill init and hangs up. I have checked the partitons using Puppy linux from CD and gparted shows the swap and linux partitions exactly as I left them, and I can even access the folders and files without difficulty. Is there any way I can rescue the system without a complete re-install? All the kernels are present in the /boot directory, so it may well be a corrupt config file somewhere, but my knowledge of such things is limited to taking advice from others, I'm afraid. Windows XP Pro boots from its partition without any problems whatsoever, so it is likely the disk, although 8 years old now, is still working OK. All help, as always, much appreciated. Dave :mellow: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 21, 2008 Report Share Posted March 21, 2008 Can you post the output of: fdisk -l /dev/hda so we can see the partition table layout. Also, contents of /etc/fstab would be good, so we can see where each partition goes in terms of mount point, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveinSpain Posted March 21, 2008 Report Share Posted March 21, 2008 (edited) Can you post the output of: fdisk -l /dev/hda so we can see the partition table layout. Also, contents of /etc/fstab would be good, so we can see where each partition goes in terms of mount point, etc. Will do as soon as possible. Due to circumstances (my wife) not within my control, I have to do some interior decorating today. Personally, I think she has far more flair for colour, light and shadow and a keener eye for application but I can't convince her she should do it. Had a quick look and there is a lot of stuff about bits not on boundaries on HDA1 (XP) and no device HDA6 (should be linux) HDA5 (swap) does not have a partition table. Will get the rest asap. Edited March 21, 2008 by DaveinSpain Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveinSpain Posted March 21, 2008 Report Share Posted March 21, 2008 OK, escaped for a while. output as below. Output of /dev/hda Disk /dev/hda: 30.7GB 30735581184 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3736 cylinders Units=cylinders of 16065*512=8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 * 1 1912 153581084 c W95 fat32 (LBA) /dev/hda2 1913 3736 14651280 5 Extended /dev/hda5 1913 2044 10602580 82 linux swap Solaris /dev/hda6 2045 3736 135909584 83 linux Output from more /etc/fstab Label=Linux / ext3 defaults 1 1 /dev/hdc /media/cdrom auto umask=0, users, iocharset=utf8, noauto, ro, exec 0 0 /dev/hdd /media/cdrom2 auto umask=0, users, iocharset=utf8, noauto, ro, exec 0 0 none /media/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0, fs=exf2:vfat, --,umask=0, iocharset=utf8, sync 0 0 /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows vfat, umask=0, iocharset=utf8 0 0 none /proc/ proc defaults 0 0 /dev/ hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0 I checked twice. There was no mention of /dev/hda6 from /etc/fstab. Don't know if this is relevant or not, but that is wher my linux system sits. I think the transcription is accurate. I have yet to learn the intricacies of dot commands. :unsure: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 21, 2008 Report Share Posted March 21, 2008 Add to /etc/fstab: /dev/hda6 / ext3 defaults 1 1 and see if it'll get your system booting again. Without this line, this is most likely why your system can't boot. Providing of course that it was ext3 when it was set up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Batson Posted March 21, 2008 Report Share Posted March 21, 2008 I recently pulled my hard drive from an old system and put it into a newer system as the master. Grub comes up ok and windoze boots ok but when I try to boot to Linux I get a kernel panic. One possibility is a drive geometry error. See the following: Hard disk geometry thread Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveinSpain Posted March 22, 2008 Report Share Posted March 22, 2008 Add to /etc/fstab: /dev/hda6 / ext3 defaults 1 1 and see if it'll get your system booting again. Without this line, this is most likely why your system can't boot. Providing of course that it was ext3 when it was set up. Thanks, but no joy. From what I can see from the onscreen messages on bootup it appears to be looking for an ext3 system on hda5, which is the swap partition. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveinSpain Posted March 22, 2008 Report Share Posted March 22, 2008 Thanks again, I now have it resolved. I checked /boot/grub/menu.lst and the pointers were all set to hda5. I reset them to hda6 and it worked. Still don't know how this happened as all I was doing when the system went down was using cups to try to install a network printer, but alls well that ends well. I have made a backup of menu.lst and called it menu.works and left it in the /boot/grub directory. Now to try to set up a network and install the printer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 22, 2008 Report Share Posted March 22, 2008 Yeah, I was just about to suggest looking at that, since /etc/fstab was correct. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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