Can't boot from external USB hard drive
Posts: 3
I'm trying to install Mepis to an external USB hard drive. The installation to the partition sda2 formatted as ext3 seems to be OK, and I installed GRUB to the MBR (I'm not running any other OS).
But when booting from the USB drive failed - I kept on being returned to the GRUB menu editor. I found that GRUB had assigned hd(5,1) to the sda2 partition. That's understandable, as there are 5 hard drives inside the PC, so the USB drive would be 6th (therefore = hd(5,something) in GRUB). But on bootup the USB drive is the first drive, so I changed the menu entries to reference hd(0,1).
That got me further - I got to a screen which said audit(xxxx..xx) initialized. Then I got "Kernel panic - not syncing; VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)."
How can I fix this?
root=/dev/sda2 is exactly
Posts: 3
root=/dev/sda2 is exactly what I have. I'll try not specifying it as a last resort, as it's hard to see why nothing specified would work better than the correct parameter.
There are probably different
Posts: 534
There are probably different ways of fixing this. One that may work, if you're running a kernel>=2.6.11, is adding the option rootdelay=10 to the kernel line. Have a look at:
http://www.mepis.org/node/8186
http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2005/12/msg00041.html
Having same issue, need some help.
Posts: 3
i'm new wil linux, but having the same issues. Where would I go to make the changes listed here? Need paths, and files with an example for each preferrably.
Thanks,
Mac
The rootdelay=10 option is
Posts: 534
The rootdelay=10 option is appended to the kernel line upon boot or, to make it permanent, appended to the kernel line in the Grub configuration file, /boot/grub/menu.lst. This file needs to be edited as root, can run kdesu kate /boot/grub/menu.lst.
rootdelay=10 option
Posts: 3
I'll give it a shot,
Thanks,
Mac
still not working
Posts: 3
1st,
My system sees the USB hard drive as a hard drive. If I leave it listed second after the internal hard drive, it makes it through the initial screen where it asks which os I want to boot.
I have kernel 2.6.10 however, and without being able to boot don't know how to get the 2.6.12 or higher. Could this be the problem?
I have edited the file to say rootdelay=10 as you said, and it does show up permanently now, but still have to use the CD to boot, so very slow.
Any ideas on what else to do. I still get the kernel panic error about HD0,0
Thanks,
Mac
You need a kernel >= 2.6.11
Posts: 534
You need a kernel >= 2.6.11 to use rootdelay:
There is another fix for this, involving making a new initrd image, that can work in earlier kernels, I believe, but it's more involved and not something I've tried.
http://www.tummy.com/journals/entries/jafo_20050910_151334
With a kernel < 2.6.10, there's a chance you could get this to work without rootdelay or an initrd.
What do you have in your
Posts: 534
What do you have in your root= option in the kernel line? It should be root=/dev/sda2 or you could try not specifying the option at all.