RHEL 4/USB hard drive

[seejay1982]

Hi,
I am trying to boot RHEL4 which is loaded on a USB hard drive. I have GRUB installed. On power on, GRUB starts loading and all of a sudden it gives an error saying unable to mount the partition, press any key to continue. Upon any key stroke, it takes me to a window where I could select "RHEL 4" to boot, which takes me back to the GRUB. I tried to load the kernel and initrd manually from the GRUB prompt and boot the kernel. It says it cannot mount the partition and throws a Kernel Panic - Error mounting VFS.

Can anybody give me some ideas on how to troubleshoot this?

Thanks, SJ

[devils casper]

boot up in 'linux rescue' mode through Installation CD/DVD and post the contents of /boot/grub/grub.conf and /boot/grub/device.map files.
you can use any LiveCD too.






Casper

[seejay1982]

grub.conf :
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES (2.6.9-5.EL)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-5.EL ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd.img
title Other
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1


devices.map
# this device map was generated by anaconda
(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/sda

Here are the two files. Thanks for your help.

[devils casper]

grub is installed on internal drive. first of all remove that. boot up from Windows Installation CD, select 'repair' and execute 'fixmbr'.
Plug-in External Drive as Primary Master and 'First Boot Device' in BIOS. boot up from RH installation CD/DVD and execute this code at boot: prompt

linux rescue
chroot /mnt/sysimage
grub-install /dev/sda  --recheck

press Ctrl+D two times.






Casper