VMWare -> gentoo box does not boot (VFS panic)

sunflower · n00b Joined: 23 Dec 2005 Posts: 61

Hi,

I emerged vmware-workstation and had a license key.
It works great!

So I wanted to install a gentoo box under vmware.
I did it as usual.

But:
If it boots up, it tells me, hat there is a VFS problem. It cannot mount the root partiation and I should add a "root=..." line in my config.

I checked grub.conf and everything was ok. (it's not my first grub.conf ;-)

) root=/dev/sda4 is appended there and really /dev/sda4 is my root partition formated with reiserfs.

I also checked that my kernel knows about reiserfs so he can mount the root partition which is formated with reiserfs.

Is there another pitfall that can cause this behaviour? Something that is specific to vmware?
I never had a problem like this when I installed gentoo on a "normal" computer like laptops, servers, workstation, etc.

Can anyone help?

Thanks!

brot · Guru Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Posts: 318

Maybe you forgot to enable support for the scsi controller that vmware emulates ?

(if not, boot again with your live cd, and rebuild your kernel)

sunflower · n00b Joined: 23 Dec 2005 Posts: 61

Hmmmm,

this may be an interesting point. i used kernel 2.6.14-r5. And did not change the scsi configuration. But:
The kernel gets loaded from the hdd, how can this happen if there is a scsi problem.
It is only related to the root partiation...

strange. Any idea?

BlackB1rd · Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 1:03 am Post subject:

This wiki helped me: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Install_Gentoo_on_VMware_in_Windows_NT/2K/XP#Kernel_Configuration