[SOLVED] Kernel doesn't find root

[Major Lag]

Hello

My kernel is having trouble with finding root after grub has loaded and therefore panics. You know the typical kernel panic with the kernel searching for root elsewhere, like network, etc., but then fails and gives up.
At first I assumed it was driver related, so I read some about the controllers and from what I understand the ahci driver should work for both of them. With lsmod in the chrooted environment I can see the ahci-driver is used by three devices. No luck though.
So I tried a few diffirent drivers without success and ended up compiling every s-ata driver I could find into the kernel. But now I doubt it's driver related since that did not solve the problem.
My s-ata controller is an ULi M5288 and the raid controller is a Silicon Image 3132. It is by the way a single disk, so it's not in a raid.

Here my complete fstab

# <fs>          <mountpoint>    <type>          <opts>                  <dump/pass>
/dev/sda1       /boot           ext2            noauto,noatime          1 2
/dev/sda2       none            swap            sw                      0 0
/dev/sda3       /               ext3            noatime                 0 1
/dev/sda4       /home           ext3            noatime                 0 2
/dev/cdrom      /mnt/cdrom      auto            noauto,ro               0 0

# glibc 2.2 and above expects tmpfs to be mounted at /dev/shm for
# POSIX shared memory (shm_open, shm_unlink).
# (tmpfs is a dynamically expandable/shrinkable ramdisk, and will
#  use almost no memory if not populated with files)
shm             /dev/shm        tmpfs           nodev,nosuid,noexec     0 0

and here's grub.conf

default 0
timeout 0
#splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title Gentoo MediaServer
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/kernel root=/dev/sda3

What am I missing? If there's anything else you would like to know just tell me and I'll try to get you the information.

Thanks in advance
/Marc

[devils casper]

Post the output of ls /boot command.

[Major Lag]

Post the output of ls /boot command.

In chrooted environment (don't mind the "livecd")

livecd / # ls /boot/
boot  grub  kernel  lost+found

Yes, my kernel is named only "kernel" if that was what you really were wondering

[Jonathan183]

Does mount -a report errors from in the chroot environment, and when you are chrooted in what does mount report in another terminal?

[alf55]

Hello

My kernel is having trouble with finding root after grub has loaded and therefore panics. You know the typical kernel panic with the kernel searching for root elsewhere, like network, etc., but then fails and gives up.
At first I assumed it was driver related, so I read some about the controllers and from what I understand the ahci driver should work for both of them. With lsmod in the chrooted environment I can see the ahci-driver is used by three devices. No luck though.
So I tried a few diffirent drivers without success and ended up compiling every s-ata driver I could find into the kernel. But now I doubt it's driver related since that did not solve the problem.
My s-ata controller is an ULi M5288 and the raid controller is a Silicon Image 3132. It is by the way a single disk, so it's not in a raid.

Here my complete fstab

# <fs>          <mountpoint>    <type>          <opts>                  <dump/pass>
/dev/sda1       /boot           ext2            noauto,noatime          1 2
/dev/sda2       none            swap            sw                      0 0
/dev/sda3       /               ext3            noatime                 0 1
/dev/sda4       /home           ext3            noatime                 0 2
/dev/cdrom      /mnt/cdrom      auto            noauto,ro               0 0

# glibc 2.2 and above expects tmpfs to be mounted at /dev/shm for
# POSIX shared memory (shm_open, shm_unlink).
# (tmpfs is a dynamically expandable/shrinkable ramdisk, and will
#  use almost no memory if not populated with files)
shm             /dev/shm        tmpfs           nodev,nosuid,noexec     0 0

and here's grub.conf

default 0
timeout 0
#splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title Gentoo MediaServer
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/kernel root=/dev/sda3

What am I missing? If there's anything else you would like to know just tell me and I'll try to get you the information.

Thanks in advance
/Marc

Sorry I can not understand when you said it is not RAID in message and really jumped the gun in this reply.....



If you are using a raid, where is your "initrd" which is used to load the raid software so that the kernel can talk to the drive? A line like:

initrd (hd0,0)/initrd-2.6.31-gentoo-r6-ucb-02.img

[Mudgen]

Not a Gentoo expert, but I don't think it needs an initial ramdisk if _all_ necessary drivers are compiled into the kernel.

The SiL3132 is "fakeraid", reputed to work with the libsata sata_sil driver. Is that compiled into your kernel?

[Major Lag]

Does mount -a report errors from in the chroot environment, and when you are chrooted in what does mount report in another terminal?

I'm not sure I understood you correctly, but running "mount -a" reports nothing from either inside nor outside the chrooted environment. Though I can tell you all important devices in fstab are mounted, except shm, but that's because it wasn't included inside the livecd fstab. Don't think the manual ever mentioned /dev/shm had to be mounted for the system to boot properly?

[Major Lag]

Sorry I can not understand when you said it is not RAID in message and really jumped the gun in this reply.....

If you are using a raid, where is your "initrd" which is used to load the raid software so that the kernel can talk to the drive? A line like:

I'm sorry if I was unclear, I am not using raid on this system. It is only one physical harddrive.

Not a Gentoo expert, but I don't think it needs an initial ramdisk if _all_ necessary drivers are compiled into the kernel.

The SiL3132 is "fakeraid", reputed to work with the libsata sata_sil driver. Is that compiled into your kernel?

Yes, every single s-ata/raid driver is compiled into the kernel, not as modules, but included inside the kernel. So they should all load at runlevel 1 I suppose?
I've tried several diffirent settings in bios as well. From forced ahci-mode (no raid) to raid-mode (which I believe includes support for ahci), though without any success.

My thanks to everyone who is engaging in this problem of mine

[alf55]

Silly question, are you booting this from a USB device or an internal device?

The reason I ask is that some BIOS will show the USB device as SDB even when booted from it while others see it as SDA...

[Major Lag]

Silly question, are you booting this from a USB device or an internal device?

The reason I ask is that some BIOS will show the USB device as SDB even when booted from it while others see it as SDA...

No, it's a harddrive, a Raptor 74. Interesting behavior though, I will remember that for future experiments.