kernel panic when booting from pcmcia card[solved]

[Adel Ahmed]

I have installed grub and gentoo to a pcmcia card, grub loads just fine and the kernel is loaded, however I get the kernel panic:
VFS: Cannot open root device "sdb1" or unknown-block(1,0)

the panic message includes the partitions found on my harddisk(sda) but not on my pcmcia card(sdb), this lead me to the conclusion that there is something missing in my kernel config

heres my kernel config file:
http://pastebin.com/vrzKEY5z

thanks

problem solved by removing the hard drive's drivers from the kernel(modularized)

[roarinelk]

enable CONFIG_PATA_PCMCIA, make it built-in, and add "rootwait" to the kernel commandline
(the card may be detected _after_ the kernel tries to mount the root device, this command
makes it wait forever for the root device to appear before attempting to mount it).

[NeddySeagoon]

blakdeath,

You also need PCMCIA support built into your kernel.

unknown-block(1,0) is the first RAM disk. So your error reads as if you have told the kernel to use an initrd but not provided one.
Please post your grub.conf
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

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

[roarinelk]

[Adel Ahmed]

Even after enabling the CONFIG_PATA_PCMCIA in the kernel did nothing i'm afraid , the rootwait parameter didnt help either.
here's my grub.conf:
default 0
timeout 30
#splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title Gentoo Linux
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/kernel3 root=/dev/sdb1

title gentoo linux with root wait
root(hd1,1)
kernel /boot/kernel3 root=/dev/sdb1 rootwait=10


thanks for the help

[roarinelk]

post a full dmesg please

[Adel Ahmed]

when I chroot, dmesg just prints out my PC's dmesg, how do I get it to print out my chroot environment's dmesg?

[roarinelk]

try netconsole if you have another networked machine:
http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/networking/netconsole.txt

[Adel Ahmed]

I only have acecess to wireless networks and I havent configured wireless networking on that machine yet, is tehre another way to do that(pherhaps via /var/log?)

thanks

[NeddySeagoon]

blakdeath,

There is only one dmesg, its the same inside and outside the chroot.
You can save dmesg to a file and put it on a usb stick to move it to another machine to post.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

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

[Adel Ahmed]

but I can't even boot into the system
I can only access the system via chroot
does that mean I wont be able to get the dmesg log?

[NeddySeagoon]

blakdeath,

No. Boot the system however you like, the dmesg is the same inside and outside the chroot.
It may change when you change kernels hardware or whatever.

While you are posting files, post your grub.conf too please.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

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

[Adel Ahmed]

here's my grub.conf:
default 0
timeout 30
#splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title Gentoo Linux
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/kernel3 root=/dev/sdb1

title gentoo linux with root wait
root(hd1,1)
kernel /boot/kernel3 root=/dev/sdb1 rootwait=10

[NeddySeagoon]

blakdeath,

Thats OK. Don't forget your dmesg.

What is the date and time in the kernel called /boot/kernel3 ?
ls -l /boot shows it.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

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

[Adel Ahmed]

ah here's my ls -l :
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1 Jun 3 09:20 boot -> .
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 4 09:14 grub
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4117984 Jun 3 11:41 kernel2
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4126784 Jun 4 06:07 kernel3



here's my dmesg:
http://pastebin.com/jKr2T0nc
my pccard is sdb

thanks

[roarinelk]

oh it's a USB CF Card reader! you need to make CONFIG_USB_STORAGE=y (built-in).

[Adel Ahmed]

I already have that option built in

[roarinelk]

plug the card reader in, boot the kernel you want to use, but set the rootfs to the
harddisk instead of the cf card. then send the dmesg. also be aware that any
usb sticks you plug in might change the drive devnode of the cardreader.

the dmesg you posted only shows that you plugged the cardreader over an hour after boot.
that doesn't help finding the problem in the slightest.

[Adel Ahmed]

sorry about that
here's the new dmesg:
http://pastebin.com/hmHr6Zjf

[NeddySeagoon]

blakdeath,

Some BIOSes report the boot drive as (hd0,0) regardless of which drive it actually is this makes installing grub correctly a problem because the drive swap BIOS names between the grub install and being used to boot.

Lets do some checking ...

Go to boot from your USB stick. When the grub menu appears, press e for edit.
Grub will show you

[Adel Ahmed]

well I followed those instructions and grub showed me that teh card is (0,0)
I adjusted teh grub accordingly (kernel, & root=) and adjusted the fstab as well (/dev/sda1 on /)
this is my current kernel panic:
http://www.4shared.com/photo/bF3jS40u/CAM00111.html

and If I use rootwait=10 I get:
http://www.4shared.com/photo/zp8W2PEN/CAM00112.html

thanks, I appreciate your help

[roarinelk]

hmm, while the kernel output is scrolling down, did you ever see the
cardreader being detected? Right now only the sata disk is known to the kernel.

rootwait doesn't take any parameters btw, just "linux.git root=/dev/sdb1 rootwait"

[Adel Ahmed]

yeah I noticed it wasn't detected, only my hard disk was detected and sda1(an ntfs partition) is attempted, there is no sdb at all

[Adel Ahmed]

I just used one of machine's initrd, and the system successfully boots, this is a temporary solution, I'd like to boot without an initrd, this indicates that something might be missing in the kernel though

here's my dmesg when using an initrd
http://pastebin.com/yJN8JYuC

[roarinelk]

Interestingly, it IS detected: