External drive, grub, kernel panic [solved]

ImAmMe · n00b Joined: 10 Feb 2006 Posts: 61

My external drive is hooked up to gentoo box i copied my kernel config to the external, so the kernel should be ok. I have also tried changing fstab
/dev/sdaX to /dev/hdbX with no difference, Im not sure that the system is able to even reach the fstab. With the grub.conf i do root(hd1,0) grub cant mount the selected partition. Which should work, I thought.

versions
grub: 0.97-r9, USE="ncurses -custom-cflags -netboot -static"
sys-fs/e2fsprogs: 1.41.3-r1
sys-libs/e2fsprogs-libs: 1.41.3-r1

kernel panic
no filesystem could mount root, tried: ext3 vfat msdos iso9660
kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(8,3)

all this are from a chroot of the external

cat /boot/grub/device.map
(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/sda

cat /boot/grub/grub.conf
default 1
timeout 3
title=USB 2.6.30-gentoo-r4
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/2.6.30-gentoo-r4 root=/dev/sda3 rootdelay=10

cat /etc/fstab
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom auto noauto,ro 0 0
/dev/sda1 /boot ext2 noauto,noatime 1 2
/dev/sda2 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/sda3 / ext3 noatime 0 1

none /proc proc default 0 0
shm /dev/shm tmpfs nodev,nosuid,noexec 0 0

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9726 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9dc96e9e

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 5 40131 de Dell Utility
/dev/hda2 * 6 18 104422+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 19 5004 40050045 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda4 5005 9726 37929465 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 5005 7558 20514973+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda6 7559 7681 987966 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda7 7682 9726 16426431 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107861504 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd9f3e9c3

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 14 112423+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 15 668 5253255 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3 669 5891 41953747+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 5892 60801 441064575 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 5892 60801 441064543+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

tune2fs -l /dev/sda3
tune2fs 1.41.3 (12-Oct-2008)
Filesystem volume name: <none>
Last mounted on: <not available>
Filesystem UUID: 6e60e5a0-e178-43d1-ab5f-89a59368c5b3
Filesystem magic number: 0xEF53
Filesystem revision #: 1 (dynamic)
Filesystem features: has_journal ext_attr resize_inode dir_index filetype sparse_super large_file
Filesystem flags: signed_directory_hash
Default mount options: (none)
Filesystem state: clean
Errors behavior: Continue
Filesystem OS type: Linux
Inode count: 2624496
Block count: 10488436
Reserved block count: 524421
Free blocks: 6336534
Free inodes: 2180937
First block: 0
Block size: 4096
Fragment size: 4096
Reserved GDT blocks: 1021
Blocks per group: 32768
Fragments per group: 32768
Inodes per group: 8176
Inode blocks per group: 511
Filesystem created: Tue Sep 1 00:00:10 2009
Last mount time: Sun Nov 29 23:37:28 2009
Last write time: Sun Nov 29 23:44:41 2009
Mount count: 23
Maximum mount count: 31
Last checked: Tue Sep 1 00:00:10 2009
Check interval: 15552000 (6 months)
Next check after: Sat Feb 27 23:00:10 2010
Reserved blocks uid: 0 (user root)
Reserved blocks gid: 0 (group root)
First inode: 11
Inode size: 256
Required extra isize: 28
Desired extra isize: 28
Journal inode: 8
Default directory hash: half_md4
Directory Hash Seed: a271adca-605d-436e-b769-3c6f085924b7
Journal backup: inode blocks

any ideas ??

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 8:23 pm Post subject:

ImAmMe,

Do you have USB support and USB storage built into the kernel?
I suspect the answer is yes as your error is

ImAmMe · n00b Joined: 10 Feb 2006 Posts: 61

i originally thought my external drive was sda instead of the hd1. thats interesting that the bios sees the usb drives first i assumed it was the other way around.

as for the kernel usb question
cat /usr/src/linux/.config | grep USB
CONFIG_SND_USB=y
CONFIG_USB_HID=y
CONFIG_USB_HIDDEV=y
CONFIG_USB_SUPPORT=y
CONFIG_USB_ARCH_HAS_HCD=y
CONFIG_USB_ARCH_HAS_OHCI=y
CONFIG_USB_ARCH_HAS_EHCI=y
CONFIG_USB=y
CONFIG_USB_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_USB_ANNOUNCE_NEW_DEVICES=y
CONFIG_USB_DEVICEFS=y
CONFIG_USB_SUSPEND=y
CONFIG_USB_MON=y
CONFIG_USB_EHCI_HCD=y
CONFIG_USB_OHCI_HCD=y
CONFIG_USB_OHCI_LITTLE_ENDIAN=y
CONFIG_USB_UHCI_HCD=y
CONFIG_USB_PRINTER=y
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE=y
CONFIG_USB_LIBUSUAL=y

lspci -v | grep USB
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 9:42 pm Post subject:

ImAmMe,

(hd0) is grubspeak for the first hard drive detected by the BIOS.
USB hard drives are always /dev/sd... as USB storage uses SCSI commands over USB.

As well as the kernel fragment you posted, which looks OK, you need SCSI disk support.

My netboot insists that external drives start at /dev/sda, even though it has an internal SSD.

At the grub menu, press e and edit the boot stanza (in RAM only)
Try root (hd0,0)
and sda3 and sdb3 for root=/dev/

When it works - edit grub.conf
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

ImAmMe · n00b Joined: 10 Feb 2006 Posts: 61

cool, that worked for me Im up and running now. Thanks man