Linux Format forums

pyejw · Joined: Wed May 11, 2005 8:21 am Posts: 3

Hi,

Found myself trying to help a friend with their linux computer which crashed.

On rebooting, there were a load of hda errors along with a kernel panic message.

The errors which looked reasonable for googling were:

pivotroot: pivot_root (/sysroot, sysroot/initrd failed:2)

umount .initrd/proc failed:2

Kernel panic: No initrd found

I've tried rebooting with the RH9 disk1 in and going into linux rescue mode, but that claims not to have found any RH9 mountable drives.

After dropping into the shell, I can mount /boot but not /

Probably a load of things, that I should try, but can't remember or find.

So, help.

Cheers.

alloydog · LXF regular Joined: Thu Apr 07, 2005 8:32 pm Posts: 600

/ should be mounted at start-up, it's in the fstab
Do you know what you r friend was doing when the crash occured?
Editting system files? Installing SW? Pouring cocoa in the cooling slots? (The last ones a joke, honest...)

Rhakios · Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 5:58 pm Post subject: RE: Kernel panic - RH9

pyejw · Joined: Wed May 11, 2005 8:21 am Posts: 3

Hi,

The machine won't boot into Linux at all. It's a dual boot, with the XP partition booting fine.

They were trying to wine something and got "frustrated" with the machine hanging, so did a hard reboot - with the case that it throws a wobbly when trying to boot into Linux.

My understanding (and all dual-boot systems I've looked at before) is that the first parition is /boot and / is another partition (/dev/hda1 mapped to /boot and /dev/hda6 mapped to / for instance).

dandnsmith · Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 11:53 am Post subject: RE: Kernel panic - RH9

When you've booted in rescue mode, as you say, the root partition / will normally be mounted - and it tells you where.

If you don't get that, do 'fdisk -l' to list the partitions on the HDDs - you may come to the conclusion that the partition table has been messed up, but, if in doubt, post it for analysis.

Then you can get on to doing things like 'fsck /dev/hda..' to check the root partition.

In /boot/grub you should be able to check the grub.conf file to see where the files are being looked for (for the intrd and so on).

Also, is the bootloader GRUB?
_________________
Derek

pyejw · Joined: Wed May 11, 2005 8:21 am Posts: 3

linux rescue doesn't recognise any linux partitions to mount - hence my playing around with fdisk and trying to mount partitions.

Yes, the bootloader is Grub.

grub.conf gives the usual dual-boot system
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2 etc.
initrd /initrd- etc

fdisk throws up the following (paraphrased):

/dev/hda 203.9Gb
63 sectors, 24792 cylinders

/dev/hda1 * 1 2549 20474811 c Wind95 FAT (LBA)
/dev/hda2 2550 2562 1044224 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 2563 3836 10233405 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 3837 24792 168329070 f Wind 95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 3837 4218 3068383+ 82 Linux Swap
/dev/hda6 4219 24792 1652606234+ 83 Linux

Doing fsck on /dev/hda2 and /dev/hda6 are fine.

/de/hda3 gives the following error:
"
Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read while trying to open /de/hda3.
Could this be a zero-length partition?
"
I'm guessing this means the partition is knackered and needs to be re-installed.

Can't get into /etc/fstab to check if anything got mucked up that way.

dandnsmith · Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 11:37 am Post subject: RE: Kernel panic - RH9

Yes, I agree. Looks like /dev/hda3 content is knackered, even tho the partition table entry looks good. I'd go for a reinstall, unless there's something which you are desperate to retrieve, in which case you could try Ultimate Boot CD or System Rescue CD for tools to get particular files (might even be able to repair the filesystem)

Good Hunting
_________________
Derek