[tommytabib]

I just installed arch linux 2007.05 on a empty 40gig hard drive. I let the install auto-partition my hard drive and made my root (or did it say boot) partition 320mb, my swap partition 2500mb and my home partition 7500mb.

Everything worked fine, after a few tries and failed installs, and i installed the bootloader grub but i didn't edit anything with nano - i just left it how it was and set a root password.

Then i rebooted my computer, when it told me to, and selected arch linux from my grub menu......and then this came up:

:: Running Hook [keymap]
:: Loading Keymap...Cannot find default font
done.
:: Running Hook [filesystems]
:: Loading root filesystem module...
Attempting to create root device '/dev/sda3'
ERROR: Failed to parse block device name for '/dev/sda3'
unknown
ERROR: root fs cannot be detected. Try using the rootfstype= kernel parameter.
Waiting for devices to settle...done.

Root device '/dev/sda3' doesn't exist, attempting to create it
ERROR: Failed to parse block device name for '/dev/sda3'
ERROR: Unable to create/detect root device '/dev/sda3'
Dropping to a recovery shell... type 'exit' to reboot
NOTE: klibc contains no 'ls' binary, use 'echo *' instead

If the device '/dev/sda3' gets creaed while you are here,
try adding 'rootdelay=8' or higher to the dernel command-line
ramfs$

And this is what my grub entry looks like when i click "e" at the grub menu:

root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro
initrd /kernel26.img

I've tried the "rootdelay=8" but it didn't work, tonight i might plug the hard drive in a different computer and see what else i can find out.

Any help?
Whats going on and why?
How can i fix it?

Thanks

[Tutku]

could you please send us your partition table.

Error gives

ERROR: Failed to parse block device name for '/dev/sda3'

but as your menu.lst file your system use /dev/sda1. It can cause this error.

[tommytabib]

Sorry under my grub entry i ment to write /dev/sda3, sd1 is a typo - ill edit my first post to correct it.

Do you still want my partition table?

Also ive tried editing grub to use sda0, sda1, sda2, sda3, ect. They all give the same errors.

EDIT: im going to do a fresh install, again, and see what happens.

[bigtomrodney]

That partition scheme sounds waay crazy. Root should be ideally 4-10GB depending on how much you want to install. Swap should never be bigger than 1GB and even at that 512MB is enough. If you really did make a root partition of 320MB you will undoubtedly be missing some of your installation or would not have enough of a /tmp directory to facilitate a running system. Anything left can be your /home partition.

[tommytabib]

Heres what i did, @bigtomrodney, I selected the auto-prepare hard drive option and it came up with the first box saying something like "select size of root partition" and the default size was set at 32mb i then decided to just add a 0 to that to make it 320mb, i did the same with swap.... its default was 250mb so i changed it to 2500.

EDIT: STOP i just checked and found out that its not a root partition, its a boot partition. I was confused because arch doesnt seem to create a "/" (home) partition. So, heres what i have:

Boot = 320mb
Swap = 2500mb
Root = 7500mb

Sorry about that

[tommytabib]

UPDATE:

Alright, good news, i did a re-install of arch linux and (after about two failed attempts) i actually got it working. I rebooted and all worked how it is supposed to

Of course i still don't know how to do anything yet, so i wouldn't say i have a fully working system just yet. But i know that there are many good, and very detailed, guides telling you what to do - plus theres these forums

So thank you to all who tried to help, its much appreciated - and im sure ill be posting a few more arch-based questions here in the future

Thanks