Re: [gentoo-user] grub on a SATA drive

[Chris Boot]

maxim wexler wrote:
> Thanks for your suggestions. Here's where things
> stand:
>
> I did a fresh 2005.1 stage3 install onto the SATA
> drive without a hitch. I removed the ide drive, so
> there's only one hd.
>
> In dmesg the drive comes up as /dev/sda
>    sda1(Macro$haft) sda2(/boot) < sda5(swap) sda6(/)
> sda7(home)>
>
> When I boot w/ the grub floppy I do:
>
> grub> root (hd0,1)
>       Fs is ext2, part type 0x83
> grub> kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda6
>       [Linux-bzImage, setup=0x120, size 0x1463b31]
>
> ...so far, so good...
>
> grub> boot
>
> and get:
>
> ...VFS: Cannot open root device "sda6" or unknown
> block (0,0)
> Please append correct "root" boot option
> Kernel Panic-not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs
> on unknown block (0,0)

So grub loads abd boots the Linux kernel, but the kernel can't mount the 
root FS on /dev/sda6. So /dev/sda6 doesn't exist for some reason, which 
could be one of:
1) There is no /dev/sda6 partition
2) You haven't compiled in support for your SATA controller in the kernel

There are two ways of doing SATA on Linux, one is through the IDE layer, 
which is deprecated and I strongly recommend against, the other is using 
libata through the SCSI layer.

> So I'm at a loss. The grub commands went alright.
> Wouldn't I get an error if one of the commands was
> wrong? Don't know what's meant by "unknown block
> (0,0)". Is it saying it's trying to mount / on
> /dev/sda1? Doesn't make sense.

That means it has no idea what sda6 is, that there is no such device.

HTH,
Chris

-- 
Chris Boot
bootc@×××××.net
http://www.bootc.net/
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