[gentoo-user] Boot situation

[gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Colleen Beamer]

Hi all,

Please read this carefully.  Don't take offense, I'm not insinuating
that you wouldn't.  It's just that I don't want to get myself into more
of a pickle than I'm in!  ;-(

This morning as I was getting my son off to work, he got me upset about
something and I walked over to my laptop and instead of hitting the 'On'
button, I accidentally hit the 'Media Direct' button.  (I'm explaining
the why so you won't thing that I'm a total airhead!).  The laptop is a
Dell XPS M1710.  The Dell Media Direct Splash screen display, but of
course, did nothing else 'cause there is only Linux on the laptop.


Anyway, this corrupted my boot partition, but I was able to fix that.  I
just deleted the partition that hitting the 'Media Direct' button made.
 It put this at the end of the hard drive, but it was made the bootable
partition and had a DOS/Windows partition type.

I deleted the partition that hitting the 'Media Direct' button had made,
then recreated a new Linux partition with an ext2 file system and made
this bootable where the original boot partition had been.

Then, I followed the Gentoo Handbook, doing all the relevant steps
except for downloading software that was already there.  I chroot'd into
 my environment to install grub - I did all the relevant steps including
chrooting into my own environment.  In my chroot'd environment, I can do
an 'ls' and it reads the drives.  I can also edit files like grub.conf
and fstab, so there isn't a problem with my remaining partitions after
reconfiguring the boot partition.

I reinstalled grub, created grub.conf and ran grub-install and that was
successful.

However, when I reboot, I get a garbled screen, but I *can* make out the
text, although barely.

It goes through the boot process and gets to the point where 'Activating
mdev' is displayed

Then, the following is displayed:
Determining root device
Block dev sda3 is not a valid root device
The root block device is unspecified or not detected.

Of note and I'm not sure if this is where the problem is, is that when I
was mounting my partitions prior to chroot'ing into my own environment,
I got a message about maximal mount count and it told me I should run
e2fsck.  I tried this and got an error message.  However, my hard drive
is not ext2, it is ext3.

I apologize for the length of this, but I wanted to try to explain
everything.  I'm having fits here - I'm writing from my old 686 computer
which did have all my files on it.  However, I ftp'd them to my webspace
and then back down to the laptop.  When I did that, I deleted most of
them off the 686 and as luck would have it I didn't do a recent backup
from the laptop.  I do have an older backup, but would lose some recent
files if I can't get my laptop up and running without a reinstall.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,

Colleen
-- 

Registered Linux User #411143 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 09 September 2007, Colleen Beamer wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Please read this carefully.  Don't take offense, I'm not insinuating
> that you wouldn't.  It's just that I don't want to get myself into
> more of a pickle than I'm in!  ;-(

Nah, hit the right buttons in the right order at the right time and you 
can fix anything :-)


I'll give you a verbose reply in the hopes that we can get to the root 
of the problem right away

> This morning as I was getting my son off to work, he got me upset
> about something and I walked over to my laptop and instead of hitting
> the 'On' button, I accidentally hit the 'Media Direct' button.  (I'm
> explaining the why so you won't thing that I'm a total airhead!). 
> The laptop is a Dell XPS M1710.  The Dell Media Direct Splash screen
> display, but of course, did nothing else 'cause there is only Linux
> on the laptop.

I'm not familiar with that 'Media Direct' thing, no Dell I've ever 
worked on has such a thing. Can you fill me in on what it does, so we 
can try figure out what dastardly thing it did to your system?


> Anyway, this corrupted my boot partition, but I was able to fix that.
>  I just deleted the partition that hitting the 'Media Direct' button
> made. It put this at the end of the hard drive, but it was made the
> bootable partition and had a DOS/Windows partition type.

bootable partition markers are ignored under Linux, they make no real 
sense with a real boot loader like grub.

The Media Direct making a partition and you deleting it should not 
affect anything. It's a lot like creating a file - it doesn;t affect 
the existing files. Unless of course the Media Direct trashed an 
existing partition, which no sane software should ever do.

> I deleted the partition that hitting the 'Media Direct' button had
> made, then recreated a new Linux partition with an ext2 file system
> and made this bootable where the original boot partition had been.

OK. That's the long way round but it seems like you got it fixed anyway. 
I find it to be a good idea to keep a spare copy of the files in /boot 
for cases like this - saves having to recompile the kernel

> Then, I followed the Gentoo Handbook, doing all the relevant steps
> except for downloading software that was already there.  I chroot'd
> into my environment to install grub - I did all the relevant steps
> including chrooting into my own environment.  In my chroot'd
> environment, I can do an 'ls' and it reads the drives.  I can also
> edit files like grub.conf and fstab, so there isn't a problem with my
> remaining partitions after reconfiguring the boot partition.
>
> I reinstalled grub, created grub.conf and ran grub-install and that
> was successful.
>
> However, when I reboot, I get a garbled screen, but I *can* make out
> the text, although barely.

Thats tells me the grub install did not in fact go right. But no matter, 
it seems to work so once we get the OS running, we can fix the grub 
later. Meanwhile just remember that you have to navigate grub blind 
when booting

> It goes through the boot process and gets to the point where
> 'Activating mdev' is displayed
>
> Then, the following is displayed:
> Determining root device
> Block dev sda3 is not a valid root device
> The root block device is unspecified or not detected.

That is the root of your problem and is one of two things:

/dev/sda3 is corrupt, or
/dev/sda3 is nto the partition you boot from and grub.conf is corrupt

> Of note and I'm not sure if this is where the problem is, is that
> when I was mounting my partitions prior to chroot'ing into my own
> environment, I got a message about maximal mount count and it told me
> I should run e2fsck.  I tried this and got an error message. 
> However, my hard drive is not ext2, it is ext3.

That's normal. ext2 does a file system check every 20 or so mounts as a 
safety feature, and this time just happened to be your turn. e2fsck 
willnormally do it's thing as exit without having to do anything. This 
is good, as you don't expect the filesystem to be damaged normally, and 
it's good to see that they are in fact intact.

That you use ext3 is also not relevant - ext3 is a new! improved! ext2 
with one awesomely useful extra feature. Any tool necessary on ext2 
still works on ext3.

> I apologize for the length of this, but I wanted to try to explain
> everything.  I'm having fits here - I'm writing from my old 686
> computer which did have all my files on it.  However, I ftp'd them to
> my webspace and then back down to the laptop.  When I did that, I
> deleted most of them off the 686 and as luck would have it I didn't
> do a recent backup from the laptop.  I do have an older backup, but
> would lose some recent files if I can't get my laptop up and running
> without a reinstall.

I'd need some info at this point to help you further. You will likely 
need to boot off a LiveCD or rescue disk to get to this, then mount the 
root partition and chroot into it. Do you know the procedure for that?

What was your partition layout before this mistake happened? If you can 
remember how many partitions you had, their size, the order they were 
in and where they were mounted, that info would be useful.

The contents of your /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/grub.conf

The output of 'fdisk -l /dev/sda'

The output of e2fsck, run on each of your filesystems

alan


>
> Thanks in advance for your help.
>
> Regards,
>
> Colleen
> --
>
> Registered Linux User #411143 with the Linux Counter,
> http://counter.li.org



-- 
Optimists say the glass is half full,
Pessimists say the glass is half empty,
Developers say wtf is the glass twice as big as it needs to be?

Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Colleen Beamer]

Thanks Alan,

Whew!  You gave me a lot to respond to and it will take a bit of time
since I have to run between two computer.

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Sunday 09 September 2007, Colleen Beamer wrote:

> 
> I'll give you a verbose reply in the hopes that we can get to the root 
> of the problem right away
> 
>> This morning as I was getting my son off to work, he got me upset
>> about something and I walked over to my laptop and instead of hitting
>> the 'On' button, I accidentally hit the 'Media Direct' button.  (I'm
>> explaining the why so you won't thing that I'm a total airhead!). 
>> The laptop is a Dell XPS M1710.  The Dell Media Direct Splash screen
>> display, but of course, did nothing else 'cause there is only Linux
>> on the laptop.
> 
> I'm not familiar with that 'Media Direct' thing, no Dell I've ever 
> worked on has such a thing. Can you fill me in on what it does, so we 
> can try figure out what dastardly thing it did to your system?

Truthfully, I'm not sure what it does.  I have never had a computer with
that button either and I don't have Windows on the laptop - I installed
Gentoo right away.  All I know is that when I hit that button thinking
that I had hit the power button and walked away, the splash screen with
"Dell Media Direct" was displayed.
> 
> 
>> Anyway, this corrupted my boot partition, but I was able to fix that.
>>  I just deleted the partition that hitting the 'Media Direct' button
>> made. It put this at the end of the hard drive, but it was made the
>> bootable partition and had a DOS/Windows partition type.
> 
> bootable partition markers are ignored under Linux, they make no real 
> sense with a real boot loader like grub.
> 
> The Media Direct making a partition and you deleting it should not 
> affect anything. It's a lot like creating a file - it doesn;t affect 
> the existing files. Unless of course the Media Direct trashed an 
> existing partition, which no sane software should ever do.

Well, I don't know about this either.  All I know is that the partition
that was created by Media Direct was tacked on at the end of the drive
as indicated by the start and end sectors.  However, when I did ran
fdisk to print the partition scheme to the screen, the Media Direct
partition showed as sda1 (which *was* my boot partition) and it showed
as bootable, so I thought it had overwritten the boot partition.  It did
corrupt the mbr because the computer wouldn't boot.
> 
>> I deleted the partition that hitting the 'Media Direct' button had
>> made, then recreated a new Linux partition with an ext2 file system
>> and made this bootable where the original boot partition had been.
> 
> OK. That's the long way round but it seems like you got it fixed anyway. 
> I find it to be a good idea to keep a spare copy of the files in /boot 
> for cases like this - saves having to recompile the kernel

After following what I thought were all the relevant steps in the Gentoo
Handbook, the first time I tried to boot from the hard drive, I got a
message that the file couldn't be found - it focused on the line in
grub.conf that starts with 'kernel /kernel ...' so I figured that it was
because I hadn't compiled the kernel, so I compiled it.  When I did this
in my chroot'd environment, it picked up the settings from my last
kernel compilation before this situation occurred.  To explain, I use
genkernel and deselected anything related to AMD because my system is
Intel based.  When I ran 'genkernel -- menuconfig all' anything related
to AMD was still deselected.
> 
>> Then, I followed the Gentoo Handbook, doing all the relevant steps
>> except for downloading software that was already there.  I chroot'd
>> into my environment to install grub - I did all the relevant steps
>> including chrooting into my own environment.  In my chroot'd
>> environment, I can do an 'ls' and it reads the drives.  I can also
>> edit files like grub.conf and fstab, so there isn't a problem with my
>> remaining partitions after reconfiguring the boot partition.
>>
>> I reinstalled grub, created grub.conf and ran grub-install and that
>> was successful.
>>
>> However, when I reboot, I get a garbled screen, but I *can* make out
>> the text, although barely.
> 
> Thats tells me the grub install did not in fact go right. But no matter, 
> it seems to work so once we get the OS running, we can fix the grub 
> later. Meanwhile just remember that you have to navigate grub blind 
> when booting

When I ran grub-install /dev/sda (my hard drive is a SATA), it returned
the expected lines.
> 
>> It goes through the boot process and gets to the point where
>> 'Activating mdev' is displayed
>>
>> Then, the following is displayed:
>> Determining root device
>> Block dev sda3 is not a valid root device
>> The root block device is unspecified or not detected.
> 
> That is the root of your problem and is one of two things:
> 
> /dev/sda3 is corrupt, or
> /dev/sda3 is nto the partition you boot from and grub.conf is corrupt

I can't categorically say that /dev/sda is not corrupt.  However, like I
said, I can edit fstab in the chroot'd environment and if I do ls it
returns the list of files and directories.

The same happens when I do 'ls home' which is /dev/sda4.

My boot partition is /dev/sda1.  I had to reemerge grub and it installed
in the correct place.
> 
>> Of note and I'm not sure if this is where the problem is, is that
>> when I was mounting my partitions prior to chroot'ing into my own
>> environment, I got a message about maximal mount count and it told me
>> I should run e2fsck.  I tried this and got an error message. 
>> However, my hard drive is not ext2, it is ext3.
> 
> That's normal. ext2 does a file system check every 20 or so mounts as a 
> safety feature, and this time just happened to be your turn. e2fsck 
> willnormally do it's thing as exit without having to do anything. This 
> is good, as you don't expect the filesystem to be damaged normally, and 
> it's good to see that they are in fact intact.
> 
> That you use ext3 is also not relevant - ext3 is a new! improved! ext2 
> with one awesomely useful extra feature. Any tool necessary on ext2 
> still works on ext3.
> 
>> I apologize for the length of this, but I wanted to try to explain
>> everything.  I'm having fits here - I'm writing from my old 686
>> computer which did have all my files on it.  However, I ftp'd them to
>> my webspace and then back down to the laptop.  When I did that, I
>> deleted most of them off the 686 and as luck would have it I didn't
>> do a recent backup from the laptop.  I do have an older backup, but
>> would lose some recent files if I can't get my laptop up and running
>> without a reinstall.
> 
> I'd need some info at this point to help you further. You will likely 
> need to boot off a LiveCD or rescue disk to get to this, then mount the 
> root partition and chroot into it. Do you know the procedure for that?

Yes.  I'll tell you exactly what I did after recreating the boot
partition, then perhaps you can figure out if and where I went wrong.

First, I booted to the Gentoo install CD.  I'm still using the 2006.1,
but I don't figure that makes a difference 'cause all the files get
updated anyway and I do a network install the get the snapshots, etc.

2)  For some reason my network device is never automatically detected
when the install CD boots, so I have to run 'net-setup eth0' and then
I'm fine.  I checked network connectivity.

3)  I mounted the following:
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/gentoo
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/gentoo boot
This was after I had recreated the boot partition and created the file
system on it.

4)  I skipped ahead 'cause I didn't need to install the base system or
portage - the files are all there when I do 'ls /mnt/gentoo/'

Then, I did:

mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc
mount -o bind /dev /mnt/gentoo/dev

chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
env-update
source /etc/profile

At this point, you would normally do an 'emerge --sync', but I didn't

I *did* do 'ls -FGg /etc/make.profile and it returned the expected

5)  I did the step:

zcat /proc/config.gz > /usr/share/genkernel/x86/kernel-conf-2.6

The ran 'genkernel --menuconfig all'

6)  Then I did the grub stuff

emerge grub
created grub.conf

'grep -v rootfs /proc/mounts > /etc/mtab

grub-install /dev/sda

As previously stated, grub installed in the correct place (sda1)

7)  The I exited and unmounted the mounted partitions and rebooted.

> 
> What was your partition layout before this mistake happened? If you can 
> remember how many partitions you had, their size, the order they were 
> in and where they were mounted, that info would be useful.

This is/was my partition scheme and the output of fdisk -l.  The only
one I messed with today was the first one:

Disk: /dev/sda
100.0 GB 100030242816 bytes
255 heads 63 sectors/track
12161 cylinders
Units=cylinders of 16065*512=8225280 bytes


Device	    Boot  Start  End 	Blocks	  ID	System

/dev/sda1    *	  1	 17	136552	  83	Linux
/dev/sda2         18	 516	4008217+  82	Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3	  517    5380   3900080   83    Linux
/dev/sda4         5381   121161 54468382+ 83    Linux


> 
> The contents of your /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/grub.conf

Will send this later if you still think you need it after reading this
> 
> The output of 'fdisk -l /dev/sda'

See above
> 
> The output of e2fsck, run on each of your filesystems
> 
e2fsck for both sda1 (boot) and sda4 (home) come back clean

Output from e2fsck for /dev/sda3 is:

Pass
1	Checking inodes, blocks and sizes
2	Checking Directory Structure
3	Checking Directory connectivity
4	Checking Reference counts
5	Checking Summary information

/dev/dsa3: 437650/4889248 files (4.3% non-contiguous) 2203865/9767520 blocks

I supposed if worse comes to worse, I can resintall /dev/sda3 - my home
partition would remain intact on /dev/sda4

Anyway, let me know what else you need (besides maybe contents of fstab
and grub.conf

Although the fstab and grub.conf are exactly what they were before
hitting that damned "Media Direct" button.

Regards,

Colleen


-- 

Registered Linux User #411143 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 09 September 2007, Colleen Beamer wrote:
> Thanks Alan,
>
> Whew!  You gave me a lot to respond to and it will take a bit of time
> since I have to run between two computer.

:-)

[snip Media Direct stuff]

> Truthfully, I'm not sure what it does.  I have never had a computer
> with that button either and I don't have Windows on the laptop - I
> installed Gentoo right away.  All I know is that when I hit that
> button thinking that I had hit the power button and walked away, the
> splash screen with "Dell Media Direct" was displayed.

Google found this:

http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/mediadirect.htm

So it's a mini-OS type of thing to play media. It hides itself and does 
other weird stuff so I'm not surprised it went ballistic on your 
partition table...

I'd advise you to go into the BIOS setup screen at the next boot and see 
if there's a way to switch it off or disable it

[snip steps taken to fix stuff]

All those steps look correct proper and fine with the expected results

[snip]

> > The output of e2fsck, run on each of your filesystems
>
> e2fsck for both sda1 (boot) and sda4 (home) come back clean
>
> Output from e2fsck for /dev/sda3 is:
>
> Pass
> 1	Checking inodes, blocks and sizes
> 2	Checking Directory Structure
> 3	Checking Directory connectivity
> 4	Checking Reference counts
> 5	Checking Summary information
>
> /dev/dsa3: 437650/4889248 files (4.3% non-contiguous) 2203865/9767520
> blocks

/me scratches head wondering what could it be...

You might have an incorrect kernel config, with the filesystem or disk 
drivers not compiled in anymore. Could you post the output of lspci, 
plus your config? Use 'zcat /proc/config > /path/to/some/file' and 
attach it so we are sure we have the right one

What version and USE flags are you using for grub?

MediaDirect *might* have done weird things to your BIOS setup, it's 
worth a try to make a note of all current settings, then reset 
everything to default and try once more. Long shot, but I've seen 
stranger things...

> Anyway, let me know what else you need (besides maybe contents of
> fstab and grub.conf
>
> Although the fstab and grub.conf are exactly what they were before
> hitting that damned "Media Direct" button.

If they are the same then there's no real need to go further down that 
route. For the record, your boot stanza will have minimally something 
like this:

root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz ro root=/dev/sda3 console=/dev/tty1 


alan


-- 
Optimists say the glass is half full,
Pessimists say the glass is half empty,
Developers say wtf is the glass twice as big as it needs to be?

Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Colleen Beamer]

Hi,

I'm still struggling with this situation

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Sunday 09 September 2007, Colleen Beamer wrote:

> Google found this:
> 
> http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/mediadirect.htm
> 
> So it's a mini-OS type of thing to play media. It hides itself and does 
> other weird stuff so I'm not surprised it went ballistic on your 
> partition table...
> 
> I'd advise you to go into the BIOS setup screen at the next boot and see 
> if there's a way to switch it off or disable it

I tried this, but couldn't find a way to switch it off.

> You might have an incorrect kernel config, with the filesystem or disk 
> drivers not compiled in anymore. Could you post the output of lspci, 
> plus your config? Use 'zcat /proc/config > /path/to/some/file' and 
> attach it so we are sure we have the right one

I don't know what you are talking about here.  First, I can't boot from
the hard drive, so where do you want me to do lspci?  From the chroot'd
environment?  I did it and it looks okay, but I suppose I could compare
it to what I get when I've booted from the install CD

I don't know how to post any file since the problem is on my laptop
where I don't have e-mail and I'm writing on my old desktop.  I have no
means of getting the file to the old computer.
> 
> What version and USE flags are you using for grub?

I'm using the latest stable version of grub.
> 
> MediaDirect *might* have done weird things to your BIOS setup, it's 
> worth a try to make a note of all current settings, then reset 
> everything to default and try once more. Long shot, but I've seen 
> stranger things...

I've checked all the BIOS settings and they all look fine.  I didn't see
anything related to Media Direct in there.
> 
>> Anyway, let me know what else you need (besides maybe contents of
>> fstab and grub.conf
>>
>> Although the fstab and grub.conf are exactly what they were before
>> hitting that damned "Media Direct" button.
> 
> If they are the same then there's no real need to go further down that 
> route. For the record, your boot stanza will have minimally something 
> like this:

I'm going to post my grub.conf file, just to be sure.  I have a SATA
drive on the laptop and I use genkernel.

default 0
timeout 30
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title=Gentoo Linux (2.6.22-gentoo-r5)

root=(hd0,0)
kernel /kernel-genkernel-x86-2.6.22-gentoo-r5 root=/dev/ram0
init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=/dev/sda3 udev
initrd /initramfs-genkernel-x86-2.6.22-gentoo-r5

Note:  The line starting with kernel and ending with udev is all on one
line, but wordwrap is on so it displays on 2 lined


I am getting really frustrated here, 'cause my partitions all mount
properly and I can edit files on them.  When I try booting to the hard
drive, it says "grub loading", or something to that affect, but then it
won't boot properly.


Anyway, I've been at this all night, so I'm giving up till tomorrow
after work.

Regards,

Colleen



-- 

Registered Linux User #411143 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Benno Schulenberg]

Colleen Beamer wrote:
> 5)  I did the step:
>
> zcat /proc/config.gz > /usr/share/genkernel/x86/kernel-conf-2.6

This grabs the configuration from the running kernel (the one from 
the CD you booted from), not the configuration you may have had 
earlier on the system you chrooted into.  Did you tweak that earlier 
configuration?  Do you have a backup of that config somewhere?

> The ran 'genkernel --menuconfig all'

Does this also install the kernel onto the /boot partition?  (Just 
asking, as I don't know genkernel.)  Are name and version numbers 
in /boot/grub/menu.lst exactly the same as the kernel and initrd 
stored in /boot?

> Output from e2fsck for /dev/sda3 is:

It said "/dev/sda3 was not cleanly unmounted, check forced"?  If you 
run the same command again, is /dev/sda3 now clean?

> Although the fstab and grub.conf are exactly what they were
> before hitting that damned "Media Direct" button.

But since then a new kernel source tree might have been installed, 
which you might not have compiled and installed yet.  So the 
version numbers may have changed.

Benno
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Colleen Beamer]

Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> Colleen Beamer wrote:
>> 5)  I did the step:
>>
>> zcat /proc/config.gz > /usr/share/genkernel/x86/kernel-conf-2.6
> 
> This grabs the configuration from the running kernel (the one from 
> the CD you booted from), not the configuration you may have had 
> earlier on the system you chrooted into.  Did you tweak that earlier 
> configuration?  Do you have a backup of that config somewhere?

I doubt that it grabs the kernel running from the CD, 'cause when I run
'genkernel --menuconfig all' the kernel config that is brought up does
*not* have any AMD stuff in it.  I removed that from the kernel because
I don't have an AMD system.

In this process, I followed the relevant steps in the Handbook, but I
*didn't* emerge any software.  For instance, I didn't emerge genkernel
or gentoo-sources because they are already on the hard drive.  I can try
re-emerging these to see if it will help.  I will point out the
/usr/src/linux symlink points to the right sources.
> 
>> The ran 'genkernel --menuconfig all'
> 
> Does this also install the kernel onto the /boot partition?  (Just 
> asking, as I don't know genkernel.)  Are name and version numbers 
> in /boot/grub/menu.lst exactly the same as the kernel and initrd 
> stored in /boot?

I'll check this.
> 
>> Output from e2fsck for /dev/sda3 is:
> 
> It said "/dev/sda3 was not cleanly unmounted, check forced"?  If you 
> run the same command again, is /dev/sda3 now clean?

Yes.
> 
>> Although the fstab and grub.conf are exactly what they were
>> before hitting that damned "Media Direct" button.
> 
> But since then a new kernel source tree might have been installed, 
> which you might not have compiled and installed yet.

No, I use gentoo-sources and I have the latest stable version.  I did an
emerge --sync and the an emerge --pretend --update --deep world in the
chroot'd environment and the list of files returned did not include an
updated gentoo-sources ebuild

Regards,

Colleen

-- 

Registered Linux User #411143 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Benno Schulenberg]

Colleen Beamer wrote:
> Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> > Colleen Beamer wrote:
> >> zcat /proc/config.gz >
> >> /usr/share/genkernel/x86/kernel-conf-2.6
> >
> > This grabs the configuration from the running kernel (the one
> > from the CD you booted from), not the configuration you may
> > have had earlier on the system you chrooted into.
>
> I doubt that it grabs the kernel running from the CD,

It does.  You did 'mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc' before 
chrooting, which gives you the proc of the running kernel.

But it matters not.  The zcat command just saves a default config, 
in case no kernel was ever configured yet.  Your previous runs of 
genkernel saved the config to /etc/kernels/, and that config gets 
automatically reused when it exists.  So the config should be okay, 
_if it was always _that kernel that you booted, and not just the 
kernel that you _thought you booted.

It might be worth trying to overwrite your custom config 
in /etc/kernels/ (after copying it to a safe place) with the 
contents of /usr/share/genkernel/x86/kernel-conf-2.6, recompiling 
and reinstalling the kernel, and trying to boot with that.

Anyway, googling around seems to say that the following error is 
definitely some kernel configuration problem:

> Block dev sda3 is not a valid root device
> The root block device is unspecified or not detected.

Maybe use also --udev as an option to genkernel?

Benno
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Colleen Beamer]

Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> Colleen Beamer wrote:
>> Benno Schulenberg wrote:
>>> Colleen Beamer wrote:
>>>> zcat /proc/config.gz >
>>>> /usr/share/genkernel/x86/kernel-conf-2.6
>>> This grabs the configuration from the running kernel (the one
>>> from the CD you booted from), not the configuration you may
>>> have had earlier on the system you chrooted into.
>> I doubt that it grabs the kernel running from the CD,
> 
> It does.  You did 'mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc' before 
> chrooting, which gives you the proc of the running kernel.
> 
> 
> Anyway, googling around seems to say that the following error is 
> definitely some kernel configuration problem:
> 
>> Block dev sda3 is not a valid root device
>> The root block device is unspecified or not detected.
> 
> Maybe use also --udev as an option to genkernel?

I've come to that conclusion too.  I am really frustrated now 'cause
with the install CD running, I mounted my usb external hard drive and
copied /home to it.  Then, I reinstalled my whole system from scratch.
I'm not at the point where I can boot and the boot menu is displayed
properly, but I still get the above message.  So what I thought was some
residual problem with screwing up and hitting the 'Media Direct' button
wasn't really the problem after all.  sda3 is definitely in mtab 'cause
I looked at that to make sure.

Anyway, I'll google and see if I can figure out what the problem is.

Regards,

Colleen

-- 

Registered Linux User #411143 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Dan Farrell]

On Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:15:53 -0500
Colleen Beamer <colleen.beamer@gmail.com> wrote:

> I tried this, but couldn't find a way to switch it off.

Super glue the button to the case?  
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Jo Are Rosland]

On 12.09, Colleen Beamer wrote:
> Block dev sda3 is not a valid root device
> The root block device is unspecified or not detected.

Does it say anything beyond that?  I'd expect it to continue with:

    Please specify a device to boot, or "shell" for a shell..
    boot() ::

The previous error message as well as this prompt are output
by the init script in your initrd, created by genkernel.  At
the "boot() :: " prompt you should be able to enter "shell"
as a value, in order to enter a shell.

Could you try this, then do an "ls" on the "/dev" directory
to verify what devices have been created at this stage?  Maybe
you have an sdb in addition to the sda, or maybe it's called
hda?  (The former could happen if you have an external USB
drive plugged in, the latter if you've configured the wrong
driver for your disk controller).  Of course, there's also
the possiblity that you don't see any obvious disk devices
at this stage.  If that's the case, you haven't configured
your kernel with any device drivers that can handle your
drive, and need to have another look at the kernel config.

Also, while running the livecd, if you know which device is
the root device as found by the livecd, you could label it,
then use the label when naming the root device instead of
the device name.  Labels are more stable than device names...

To label a file system on a device if you're using ext2/ext3,
use the command "e2label -L <label> <device>", eg:

    e2label -L ROOT /dev/sda3

You should then change grub.conf to read:

    real_root=LABEL=ROOT

instead of "real_root=/dev/sda3"

And last, specify LABEL=ROOT for root device in /etc/fstab
on the root device as well:

    LABEL=ROOT / ext2 defaults 0 1

... or something like that.

-- 
Jo.
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Benno Schulenberg]

Colleen Beamer wrote:
> So what I thought was some residual problem with
> screwing up and hitting the 'Media Direct' button wasn't really
> the problem after all.

It might still be, depending on how you've reinstalled.  If you 
blanked the first few gigabytes of the disk with 'dd if=/dev/zero 
of=/dev/sda' and then repartitioned the drive, there shouldn't be 
anything left of what that evil button did.  But if you kept the 
partition table as it was and just recreated the file systems, 
there might still be some marker in the partition header 
of /dev/sda3 that doesn't look right to the kernel.  But it is 
quite unlikely.

Anyway, the solution could have come from yourself, if you had 
told the list what it was that you missed in the kernel config: 
http://readlist.com/lists/gentoo.org/gentoo-user/18/90989.html

:)

Benno
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Colleen Beamer]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1601 bytes --]

On 9/12/07, Benno Schulenberg <benno.schulenberg@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Colleen Beamer wrote:
> > So what I thought was some residual problem with
> > screwing up and hitting the 'Media Direct' button wasn't really
> > the problem after all.
>
> It might still be, depending on how you've reinstalled.  If you
> blanked the first few gigabytes of the disk with 'dd if=/dev/zero
> of=/dev/sda' and then repartitioned the drive, there shouldn't be
> anything left of what that evil button did.  But if you kept the
> partition table as it was and just recreated the file systems,
> there might still be some marker in the partition header
> of /dev/sda3 that doesn't look right to the kernel.  But it is
> quite unlikely.



I used fdisk - deleted all the partitions, created the new partition table
and created file systems on them.  I can read data from the drive - any text
file that I can "cat" displays fine.  I just can't get the drive recognized
when I boot to the system.

Anyway, the solution could have come from yourself, if you had
> told the list what it was that you missed in the kernel config:
> http://readlist.com/lists/gentoo.org/gentoo-user/18/90989.html



This link tells nothing - it was from the first time I installed Gentoo on
the new laptop.  This time I *did* configure sata into the kernel.  So
*that* is not the issue.  And I'm not *that* stupid that I would repeat a
previous mistake.  I truly thing something is screwed up in the
kernel-sources for 6.22-gentoo-r5 cause  not matter what I select in the
Sata section of the kernel config, nothing works.

Regards,

Colleen

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2384 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Lee Davis]

Colleen Beamer wrote:
> This link tells nothing - it was from the first time I installed Gentoo on
> the new laptop.  This time I *did* configure sata into the kernel.  So
> *that* is not the issue.  And I'm not *that* stupid that I would repeat a
> previous mistake.  I truly thing something is screwed up in the
> kernel-sources for 6.22-gentoo-r5 cause  not matter what I select in the
> Sata section of the kernel config, nothing works.
> 
That matches my experience of 2.6.22-gentoo with my M1710.  I ended up
rolling back to 2.6.18-gentoo-r7 out of frustration; I'm happy to
provide my .config if that helps.

-- 
                             C. Lee Davis
Fantasy Geographic Society              http://fantasy.geographic.net/
GCB for GURPS 4e         http://fantasy.geographic.net/project/4eGURPS
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Dan Farrell]

On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:54:01 -0400
"Colleen Beamer" <colleen.beamer@gmail.com> wrote:

> I used fdisk - deleted all the partitions, created the new partition
> table and created file systems on them.  I can read data from the
> drive - any text file that I can "cat" displays fine.  I just can't
> get the drive recognized when I boot to the system.

this means one of three things 
1- no driver for your IDE interface
	which could also be a module that you need from initrd but 
	isn't there; additionally, perhaps a hardware management process
	that the cd uses isn't available and the driver is never loaded
2- no support for the Filesystem in question in your kernel
3- incorrect specification of root filesystem or partition in fstab or
	grub.conf.  This includes specifying an incorrect device
	(sda1 from new PATA experimental drivers, when it's hda1 on
	your system, for example) 

I don't think there's anything else that could cause the problem.  Can
we see fstab and grub.conf to make sure please?  
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Colleen Beamer]

Dan Farrell wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:54:01 -0400
> "Colleen Beamer" <colleen.beamer@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I used fdisk - deleted all the partitions, created the new partition
>> table and created file systems on them.  I can read data from the
>> drive - any text file that I can "cat" displays fine.  I just can't
>> get the drive recognized when I boot to the system.
> 
> this means one of three things 
> 1- no driver for your IDE interface
> 	which could also be a module that you need from initrd but 
> 	isn't there; additionally, perhaps a hardware management process
> 	that the cd uses isn't available and the driver is never loaded

My hard drive is a *SATA* and I have build all SATA stuff into the
kernel.  If you haven't read previous messages in this thread, I had a
perfectly good working gentoo installation on my laptop until a couple
of days ago, when I got upset with my son, went to boot my computer and
hit the "Media Direct" button instead of the power button.  So if there
is no driver available for my system, how come I had a working
installation before?

> 2- no support for the Filesystem in question in your kernel

I use ext2 for boot and ext3 for root.  They are both build into the kernel.

M
> 3- incorrect specification of root filesystem or partition in fstab or
> 	grub.conf.  This includes specifying an incorrect device
> 	(sda1 from new PATA experimental drivers, when it's hda1 on
> 	your system, for example)

As previously stated, I had a working installation before and
real_root=/dev/sda3 worked just fine.

> 
> I don't think there's anything else that could cause the problem.  Can
> we see fstab and grub.conf to make sure please?

I can send both, but I don't know why that should be necessary.  They
aren't any different from when I had a good install of gentoo.

Regards,

Colleen







-- 

Registered Linux User #411143 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Colleen Beamer]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 999 bytes --]

On 9/12/07, Lee Davis <lists@geographic.net> wrote:
>
> Colleen Beamer wrote:
> > This link tells nothing - it was from the first time I installed Gentoo
> on
> > the new laptop.  This time I *did* configure sata into the kernel.  So
> > *that* is not the issue.  And I'm not *that* stupid that I would repeat
> a
> > previous mistake.  I truly thing something is screwed up in the
> > kernel-sources for 6.22-gentoo-r5 cause  not matter what I select in the
> > Sata section of the kernel config, nothing works.
> >
> That matches my experience of 2.6.22-gentoo with my M1710.  I ended up
> rolling back to 2.6.18-gentoo-r7 out of frustration; I'm happy to
> provide my .config if that helps.



I would *so* appreciate this Lee!  Thanks!

Regards,

Colleen

--
>                             C. Lee Davis
> Fantasy Geographic Society              http://fantasy.geographic.net/
> GCB for GURPS 4e         http://fantasy.geographic.net/project/4eGURPS
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2002 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Colleen Beamer]

Lee Davis wrote:
> Colleen Beamer wrote:
>> This link tells nothing - it was from the first time I installed Gentoo on
>> the new laptop.  This time I *did* configure sata into the kernel.  So
>> *that* is not the issue.  And I'm not *that* stupid that I would repeat a
>> previous mistake.  I truly thing something is screwed up in the
>> kernel-sources for 6.22-gentoo-r5 cause  not matter what I select in the
>> Sata section of the kernel config, nothing works.
>>
> That matches my experience of 2.6.22-gentoo with my M1710.  I ended up
> rolling back to 2.6.18-gentoo-r7 out of frustration; I'm happy to
> provide my .config if that helps.
> 
I followed Lee's lead and installed the last known kernel that I had
that worked - genkernel-2.6.21-r4.  Now, I can boot, no problem.  And I
made no changes to my grub.conf file or my fstab file.

One piece of advice that I took from someone who posted in the thread
(Benno, I think) was that I recreated my partitions and file systems,
but prior to doing that I ran 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda'  However, I
still got the same error message about /dev/sda not being a valid block
device when I installed genkernel-2.6.22-r5.  So that's when I decided
to follow Lee's lead.

Before all this mess happened, I *did* have 2.6.22-r5 installed, but
when I installed that, it must have used the config from 2.6.21-r4.

Now, I'm on the road to being up and running again.

Regards,

Colleen

-- 

Registered Linux User #411143 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Boot situation

[Benno Schulenberg]

Colleen Beamer wrote:
> Now, I'm on the road to being up and running again.

Good to hear your ordeal is over.

What I would be most interested in seeing is a diff between the 
config of the working 2.6.21 and the failing 2.6.22.  If on the 
current system both kernels have been installed, both configs 
should be present in /etc/kernels/.

And before the evil button scraps your partition table again, have 
you taken Dan's advice and filled up the button with epoxy glue, or 
chiseled it cleanly off?

Benno
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list