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GRUB problem with Gentoo 2005.1 on XPS 2

post #1 of 7
9/23/05 at 8:30pm
Thread Starter 
Have installed a few distros on my desktop and Fedora on my laptop before, never really having any problems, until trying to get Gentoo 2005.1 working:

FDisk reports:

Code:
Device    Boot  Start   End    Blocks    Id   System
/dev/sda1 *     1       11474  92164873+ 7    HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2       11475   12161  5518327+  f    W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5       11475   11481  56196     83   Linux
/dev/sda6       11482   12030  4409811   83   Linux
/dev/sda7       12031   12161  1052226   82   Linux swap / Solaris

grub.conf:

Code:
default 0
timeout 30
splashimage=(hd0,4)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.12-r10
root (hd0,4)
kernel (hd0,4)/kernel-genkernel-x86-2.6.12-gentoo-r10 root=/dev/sda6 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_initrd (hd0,4)/initramfs-genkernel-x86-2.6.12-gentoo-r10

title=Windows XP
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

The problem is with "root=/dev/sda6" or "root=/dev/hda6", whatever I set it to I get the following error:

Code:
VFS: Cannot open root device "sda6" 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)

Probably a simple solution to this but I can't find anything (although I havn't tried another bootloader such as LILO)...

Many thanks.

EDIT: Sorry, forgot to mention that GRUB is installed on hda5/sda5 (depending on what you want to call it), not the MBR...
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post #2 of 7
9/24/05 at 1:23am
try making /dev/sda6 active. Start fdisk /dev/sda then type "a" then give it the correct partition number. it's in the manual in the partitioning section.
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post #3 of 7
9/24/05 at 2:00am
Did you build your own kernel?
What filesystem are /dev/sda5 and /dev/sda6 using?

If I had to guess it looks like you are using a filesystem that your kernel isnt set up for correctly. Make sure you have support for that filesystem compiled into your kernel, I wouldnt even do it as a module, you know you are going to use it continuously, compile it directly in.

For some reason I always have a problem getting my configs to boot the first time as well and always takes me a bit.

Seablade
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post #4 of 7
9/24/05 at 2:56pm
Yeah, K, I would recommend that you take a little time to build a "normal" custom kernel and avoid using genkernels. Its a good learning experience and you won't need any of the init fluff in GRUB (less crap the better).

My GRUB are as simple as

title=Gentoo - 2.6.12-rc10 (September 9) - Enabled evdev
root (hd0,7)
kernel (hd0,7)/kernel-2.6.12-rc10-sept9 root=/dev/hda10
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post #5 of 7
9/24/05 at 3:38pm
mmarkin-

Heh unfortuantly while I have built kernels many times myself I always seem to have problems on Gentoo installs building kernels, I always seem to get kernel panics even when I know the kernel is right(And is even nearly identical to one other that works) for some reason on my last install I couldnt get anything BUT the genkernel to boot properly, so I used to genkernel script and modified my own kernel build, that worked well. I think it has something to do with the RamDisk used but I cant figure out exactly what the problem is.

The genkernel script I have found to not be that bad typically though.

Seablade
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post #6 of 7
9/24/05 at 3:59pm
Interesting
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post #7 of 7
9/24/05 at 4:41pm
Why not just install GRUB on your MBR? Other than that, all I can think of is maybe using linux fdisk to set the bootable flag for sda6. Oh, one other thing -- it looks like you're trying to use /dev/sda6 as a linux partition within an already defined Win95 partition. I don't know if that's allowable. You may want to try using an extended partition for all your linux related partitions.
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