Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 20008 install problem: "Could not find the root block device in ."

[Richard Marzan <richardmarzan@optonline.net>]

On Mon, 2008-07-21 at 21:57 +0200, Jarry wrote:
> Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> >> It looks to me like loader can not find my *cdrom*!
> >> But that is strange, because kernel just booted from CD,
> >> so it *must* see it!
> > 
> > Unfortunately, it's the BIOS that does this.  The kernel cannot boot by 
> > itself by some magical means.  The BIOS must boot it.
> > 
> > Your hard drives are SATA as well (on the same controller) and only the 
> > CD drive can't be found?  That's strange.  I suggest opening a bug about 
> > it.
> 
> I have 2 sata hard-drives, and 1 sata dvd-writer, all attached to the
> same controller (part of nvidia nforce4 southbridge). Despite of that,
> only hard-drive partitions are correctly detected...
> 
> I tested gentoo-2008.0 on different computer, but again with sata-disk
> and sata-dvd, and this time P35-chipset (Intel). No problem! It seems
> to me the problem is in sata_nv module (nVidia chipset): it is loaded,
> but detects only disks, no cd/dvd drives. Maybe compilled without
> cd-filesystem support?
> 
> FYI, I downloaded old good install-amd64-minimal-2007.0.iso, burned,
> booted, and gues what? All works! I'm going to open bug about it...
> 
> Jarry
> 

Please Include CONFIG_SATA_AHCI=y into your configuration of the kernel
as well as CONFIG_SATA_NV=y 

I believe the kernel docs indicate that the NVidia chipsets should be
supported by SATA_AHCI. Also, check your grub config. This is a snippet
of mine and I'm using SATA HD's on my laptop with an Nvidia chipset:

root (hd0,0) # the device where your /boot resides
kernel /linux-2.6.23-r8 root=/dev/sda2 # the device where / resides