Scientific Linux 54 booting errors -- GRUB2?

[Raskolnikov]

Hi all,

I've been trying to install Scientific Linux 54 alongside my Kubuntu and numerous Windows installations, with no success -- it won't boot. I'm a Linux beginner, by the way.

My HDD structure is:

/dev/sda - SATA storage HDD (no OS installed)

/dev/sdb1 - Windows XP
/dev/sdb5 - Partition on which I'm trying to install Scientific Linux 54
/dev/sdb6 - Kubuntu 9.10
/dev/sdb7 - Linux swap partition

/dev/sdc1 - Windows 7 RC
/dev/sdc2 - Windows XP

I have the above (barring Win7, but I don't need/want it) working -- all loading with GRUB2 as installed by Kubuntu.

I installed SL 54 to /dev/sdb5 with no bootloader, expecting the already-installed GRUB to work, refreshing it with update-grub. It showed up in the GRUB menu, so that seemed OK. When I selected to boot SL 54, it showed a bunch of the -- I assume -- standard loading text, after which it stopped with the following error:

VFS: Cannot open root device "sdb5" or unknown-block(0,0)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

After Googling the above error, some posts came up pointing to initrd -- I have no idea what that is, but I had a look in the GRUB configuration file. Comparing the (working) Kubuntu menu entry to the SL one, I noticed that it was missing any initrd-related line, which Kubuntu's had, so I added the following to the SL entry:

initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-164.2.1.el5PAE.img

Now, the boot went a good deal further, but still not quite there.

It gets to a point in the loading where it says "Waiting for driver initialization" for some time, after which it stops on

Switchroot: mount failed: No such file or directory
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

I'm sure that this is quite an easy thing to solve, I just don't know how, and I was hoping you Linux experts could help me out.

Regards,
Raskolnikov

[Rubberman]

It is likely that your drives are being reorderd by SL and what you think is /dev/sdb5 is no longer assigned that device id. As the error message suggests, you might want to give it a volume label so that the mount information will be able to find the partition, no matter what /dev/sdxn device name it is actually given.

[Raskolnikov]

As the error message suggests

Does it? How can you tell? (This isn't me disagreeing, just wanting to learn a bit more about Linux.)

you might want to give it a volume label

I've already named the volume "Scientific Linux", so it's not that. I've also tried removing the label: same result.

But here's a bit more info which might help in the diagnosis. The "complete" output during the load (that is, after waiting a while for the "Waiting for driver initialization") is:

Waiting for driver initialization
Scanning and configuring dmraid supported devices
Creating root device.
mkrootdev: expected fs options
Mounting root filesystem
mount: missing mount point
Setting up other filesystems.
Setting up new root fs
setuproot: moving /dev failed: No such file or directory
no fstab.sys, mounting internal defaults
setuproot: error mounting /proc: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /sys: No such file or directory
Switching to new root and running init
unmounting old /dev
unmounting old /proc
unmounting old /sys
switchroot: mount failed: No such file or directory
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

In /boot/grub/grub.cfg, the SL entry looks like this:

menuentry "Scientific Linux SL release 5.4 (Boron) (on /dev/sdb5)" {
	insmod ext2
	set root=(hd1,5)
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set bbd44248-c330-4949-bfa7-eecf9af24725
	linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-164.2.1.el5PAE root=/dev/sdb5
	initrd	/boot/initrd-2.6.18-164.2.1.el5PAE.img
}

It shouldn't matter that I don't have / and /boot on separate partitions, should it?