Re: [gentoo-user] udev broken...

[Alan McKinnon]

On Saturday 28 November 2009 06:06:59 BRM wrote:
> So, I have been running my laptop for quite a while with the current
>  software - it's been well over a week since I last synced and installed
>  software - when I upgraded to KDE4; and I do believe I've rebooted several
>  times since.
>
> Today, I rebooted back into my old Win2k partition - to do some checking
>  around to clean it up and prep for removal/conversion to a VM image since
>  I've been using gentoo on the laptop for well over a year, and haven't
>  touched the Win2k side for a long time. Having cleaned it up, I rebooted
>  back to gentoo, only to be faced with cascading errors during reboot due
>  to udevd not starting up and mapping the drives, etc.
>
> During boot, udevd (version 146, btw) complains about "error getting
>  signalfd". I did some basic hunting and this seems to have been a big
>  problem over the last year. I'm running kernel 2.6.25, built on 9/27, from
>  the gentoo source tree. The system then breaks while trying to do some
>  drive mounts, and I end up in maintenance mode - with read-only
>  partitions.
>
> Most seem to have resolved the issue by moving back to udev 141. I noticed
>  that newer kernels are suppose to work with it, starting with the 2.6.25;
>  so I _should_ have been okay. Needless to say, right now I'm stuck writing
>  this e-mail from Win2k.
>
> The system seems to have the correct partition mounted for the root
>  partition, but it doesn't report it as /dev/hdaX yet. However, I need
>  access to the other partitions to get to portage. (Due to size of portage,
>  and other complications, I've taken to putting it on another partition and
>  mapping it. Usually this hasn't been a problem.)
>
> So I think I have a couple options:
> 1) Figure out how to mount the other partitions, and then revert to an
>  older udev 2) Upgrade to a newer kernel - I do have sources for the 2.6.30
>  kernels.
>
> Either way, I need to figure out how to get read-access to the root
>  partition again. Any advice on either of the above (or other options), and
>  more importantly (since any options depend on it) how to get read-write
>  access to the root partition again?

Actual error messages please :-)

Let's start with what is in dmesg.

You also mention /dev/hda and the context implies it is a physical disk. 
Unless you have ancient disk hardware and unusual module setup, your disks 
will be /dev/sda. Do you have references to /dev/dh** in /etc/fstab? That 
won;t work as udev will not name them that way

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com